Do you evaluate the impact of EA Infrastructure grants? If yes, how? And do you plan to publish these impact evaluations? If not, what are the challenges?
Currently we don’t have a process for retroactively evaluating EAIF grants. However, there are a couple of informal channels which can help to improve decision-making:
We request that grantees fill out a short form detailing the impact of their grant after six months. These reports are both directly helpful for evaluating a future application from the grantee, and indirectly helpful at calibrating the “bang-for-your-buck” we should expect from different grant sizes for different projects
When evaluting the renewal of a grant, we can compare the initial application’s plans with the track record they list in a later application, to see if the grant was a success on their own terms.
One technique I’ve picked up is evaluating grants in reverse—reading the details of the project, and then giving a rough estimate of a willingness to pay for a project of that nature. Looking at the actual cost of the project can then help quickly determine if it meets a bar for funding that I’ver pre-registered
I think a lack of a proper M&E function is a problem, and one that I would be keen to address longer term
Do you evaluate the impact of EA Infrastructure grants? If yes, how? And do you plan to publish these impact evaluations? If not, what are the challenges?
Currently we don’t have a process for retroactively evaluating EAIF grants. However, there are a couple of informal channels which can help to improve decision-making:
We request that grantees fill out a short form detailing the impact of their grant after six months. These reports are both directly helpful for evaluating a future application from the grantee, and indirectly helpful at calibrating the “bang-for-your-buck” we should expect from different grant sizes for different projects
When evaluting the renewal of a grant, we can compare the initial application’s plans with the track record they list in a later application, to see if the grant was a success on their own terms.
One technique I’ve picked up is evaluating grants in reverse—reading the details of the project, and then giving a rough estimate of a willingness to pay for a project of that nature. Looking at the actual cost of the project can then help quickly determine if it meets a bar for funding that I’ver pre-registered
I think a lack of a proper M&E function is a problem, and one that I would be keen to address longer term