Council is responsible for reporting to the Ministry for the Environment on the Waitaki Waste Minimisation Fund. To do this and prove our funding was effective, we need successful applicants to plan for evaluation of their project. Consider the outcomes you want and think about how you will be able to measure progress. Consider both qualitative and quantitative measures, depending on your project type. And get contact details from participants so you can follow up with them with a survey perhaps.
For example if you are running an educational type project, like a “how to bokashi” workshop, you could ask participants to rate before the workshop how knowledgeable/confident they are to be doing bokashi right now. After your education ask the same question again. Then you are able to measure and report that they got more/less confident due to attending your workshop. You could also include some questions on key education points to check they “got it”.
Surveys on the day are useful. Following up with participants to see if they have changed a behaviour (started shopping plastic free for example) or taken action (started to bokashi for example) six weeks after is best practice for behaviour change projects. Always count participants at events at a minimum.
For projects that are able to be quantified please estimate the volume of waste in meters cubed or litres of waste, or by weight.