Why Evaluate?

It is important that programmes, projects and initiatives funded through the Big Lottery Fund are evaluated.

The Big Lottery Fund is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and distributes half of the money the National Lottery raises for good causes. Evaluation is important to ensure this money is spent effectively and in a way which helps to improve the lives of individuals and communities.

For Big Lottery Fund programmes such as Well-being and Changing Spaces, evaluation is important so as to measure what is going well and how the programme (or similar programmes in the future) can be improved. This requires an ability to capture trends and measure outcomes across the programme. The evaluation tools developed as part of this project have been designed to support this. They provide a mechanism for the Big Lottery Fund to capture outcomes for beneficiaries in a consistent, standardised way.

Evaluation is also important at a portfolio and project level. We hope that the evaluation tools which have been developed to support the national evaluation of the Well-being programme can also be useful for portfolios and projects.

For more information on evaluation please see the following paper produced by the Big Lottery Fund.

Big Lottery Fund Well-being Evaluation: Aims and Objectives Paper