• Start thinking about program evaluation from the onset of program development. Identify the path you want the program to take and how data collection can support a path toward your goals. Do you need to consult others to determine what data to collect, how to collect it and how to leverage it once you have it? Program evaluation and data collection should be embedded into your program from the very beginning.
  • When collecting data from care recipients, family caregivers and volunteers be sure to ask how they learned about your program. This will help you gauge which outreach strategies are most effective for certain groups and determine whether you need to change your marketing approach.
  • Data collection through participant and volunteer surveys is often a grant funding requirement. Often, participants are required to complete both surveys generated by the organization and surveys required by grant funders. If you have access to a data analyst provided by your funder, discuss potential strategies that can help decrease survey fatigue. This may include integrating survey questions into enrollment forms or the intake process.
  • Establishing feedback mechanisms with program partners, care recipients and family caregivers, including surveys and learning collaboratives to continuously assess the program’s effectiveness and identify areas for improvement, can be essential to your model’s development. Employing data-driven decision-making, based upon the feedback from all stakeholders to refine the program, ensures that it remains responsive to the evolving needs of the community.
  • Collect pre- and post- survey responses as timely as possible. Once volunteer assistance concludes and the volunteer or care recipient is no longer actively engaged with the organization, it is much harder to secure post- survey data. To achieve buy-in from volunteers, care recipients or family caregivers to complete the pre- and post- surveys, try to frame data collection as a method to ensure program quality and continuation. To facilitate survey completion, bring a tablet or laptop to volunteer and care recipient orientation and collect the data immediately. Using a tablet or laptop is much easier than a phone.
  • Incorporate survey data collection into the intake and exit processes. If done by phone or in person, this can be done as a natural flow of the conversation.
  • It is important to develop and use good messaging when collecting data. Survey completers should understand why the data is being collected, how it will be used and if the data they are provided is confidential and/or anonymous. You can explain that their survey responses will help improve volunteer assistance for older adults, people with disabilities, and their caregivers. Their honest answers and feedback help your organization make evidence-based decisions, stay accountable to the goals you have set, as well as demonstrate the impact of the program to the funder.
  • Be sure to collect qualitative and quantitative program data. Collection of testimonial letters and videos from both volunteers and care recipients is a meaningful way to demonstrate program impact and can be utilized in annual reports, marketing, social media and on your organization’s website.
  • Facilitate a program team annual retrospective to capture reflections, highlights, lessons learned and challenges to help plan for future program growth.
  • Conduct periodic internal audits of all processes and workflow to identify any issues arising and define and implement corrective courses of action, if warranted.
  • Survey questions are often written utilizing a Likert scale or something similar. When collecting the data in person verbally, it may be beneficial to have the Likert scale printed and laminated to assist the respondent in identifying an appropriate response.
  • Collect feedback from care recipients and volunteers through surveys and focus groups. Some of the feedback may include additional training requests, accommodations for those who do not use technology, and offering stipends for outings or mileage. Care recipients may be more responsive and provide more qualitative information, when surveys are given by phone.