“Evaluations are critical for determining the overall effectiveness of a program. These evaluations help to highlight successes and identify areas for future improvements. While this step can be done in-house, independent, third party evaluations can provide increased objectivity and alternate vantage points. Some funders or regulators require evaluations to be conducted by third parties to ensure objective and transparent assessments.”
Anchor Blue team members have conducted numerous Evaluation, Measurement & Verification (EM&V) studies over the past decade. The goals of EM&V studies are to provide unbiased, objective, and independent evaluations of existing programs offered by utilities, government organizations, and non-profits. Comprehensive evaluations are typically two-fold, providing an assessment of both the program impact (assessing claimed vs. realized achievements) and the process (assessing the program implementation). These two-fold evaluations provide clients with the following benefits:
- Useful recommendations and feedback for program improvement
- Assessment of program effectiveness in reaching target populations
- Assessment of the quality of the program tracking data
- Assessment of a program’s realized achievements compared to what was claimed or expected, such as actual energy savings in terms of energy efficiency
- Increased level of confidence in program results through transparent protocols
IMPACT EVALUATIONS
Impact Evaluations provide feedback to program implementers regarding the measurable outputs of a program. The studies quantify the actual, measured (ex-post) accomplishments, whether they be conservation metrics such as energy or water saved, or the number of people served by a program. The evaluation will compare these measured accomplishments to the claimed (ex-ante) accomplishments to allow an organization to understand its successes and shortfalls.
The Anchor Blue team consists of engineers and experienced analysts who can perform detailed engineering reviews, on-site metering, and provide both quantitative and qualitative assessments of program impacts and processes. With the team’s diverse skill set, we offer holistic solutions in our evaluation work.
PROCESS EVALUATIONS
Process Evaluations assess a program’s implementation, operation, delivery, and effectiveness. In essence, they provide the context that explains the quantitative findings of the impact evaluation. The Anchor Blue team and affiliates have extensive expertise in process evaluations and have conducted numerous process evaluations from inception to completion, including evaluation planning, drafting data collection instruments, and managing data collection teams – both internally and externally. The Anchor Blue Team has successfully carried out evaluations involving both web and telephone surveys, focus groups, Delphi panels, and other key evaluation methods. T