Evaluation and follow up

Following up with your stakeholders  

Following up from any participation activity is among the most important steps of the process. As a minimum, you need to thank people for their involvement, and let them know what happened as a result: what decisions were taken and why? What will happen next? 

This is a key opportunity to build trust with communities. Explain to participants what responses you have received and how they were used to inform the final decision or to formulate future plans and policy.  

Feeding back the results and how you have acted on them is the most important part of any community participation project. 

Engage Barnet has a ‘We asked, you said, we did’ section that summarises he outcomes of all recent community participation projects. It is important to complete this for every project so participants can easily see the outcomes of their involvement. The more open you can be about the decisions that have been made, the more trust you will build with stakeholders. Even if it isn’t the result they were hoping for.  

Learning lessons  

Evaluating your project enables you to learn from what happened. This is especially important if you are working in a new way. Discuss as a team what went well and what didn’t. Consider the implications for future activities. 

If your participation activity included a live event, it’s always a good idea to ask participants to complete a short feedback form at the end (or shortly afterwards). Evaluating events is always best done as soon afterwards as possible, while all the detail is still fresh in your memory.  

Some questions to think about: 

• What went well?  
• What did participants think of the activities?  
• What can you change for next time?  
• How can you embed earlier and more ambitious community participation in your next round of activities?