Monitoring and Evaluation Plan for Charities: A Practical Template

Published 2026-09-10 · Last reviewed 2026-09-10

Decide what you need to learn before the first session, not the week a report is due. Use this practical framework to connect outcomes, evidence and decisions without overloading your team.

The reporting deadline is approaching. Attendance is in a spreadsheet, feedback is in a folder and the colleague who knows the project best is on leave. You have plenty of information, but not a clear answer to the question: what changed for the people you supported?

A monitoring and evaluation plan helps prevent that situation. It is a set of practical agreements about what you need to know, how you will find out and what you will do with the answer. It does not need to be an expensive research exercise or a document that nobody opens after the funding bid.

This guide is for small charities, CICs and community organisations planning a project or improving an existing one. It includes a copyable planning template and an explicitly hypothetical example. Adapt both to your participants, resources and funder's requirements.

Monitoring and evaluation: what is the difference?

Monitoring tells you what is happening as the work progresses. You might record sessions delivered, attendance, referrals, spending or participant feedback. These records help a team spot problems while it can still do something about them.

Evaluation asks what those records mean. Did the project help the people it intended to support? What changed, what did not, and why might that be? Which parts should you keep, adapt or stop?

The distinction matters because activity is not the same as change. Delivering twelve workshops is an output. Participants becoming more able to manage a household budget is an outcome. Attendance alone cannot establish that the outcome happened, and a positive outcome alone does not prove the project caused it.

Start with the decisions, not the survey

Before choosing a questionnaire or dashboard, write down two or three questions the evaluation must answer. A funder may need to understand progress against agreed outcomes. A delivery manager may need to know why attendance falls after the second session. Participants may care most about whether the support was accessible and useful.

These questions overlap, but they are not interchangeable. A satisfaction survey will not explain whether someone can now apply a new skill. A headcount will not tell you whether the session time excluded people with caring responsibilities.

NCVO's framework guidance recommends involving people who collect the information and, where appropriate, the people and communities you work with. Agree the plan before delivery starts where possible, so essential evidence is not missing later.

• What decision will this evidence support, and who needs to make it?
• What would useful progress look like from a participant's perspective?
• What do we need to know during delivery, rather than only at the end?
• Which questions are essential, and which are simply interesting?

Choose outcomes and indicators you can actually measure

An outcome describes the change you hope to see. An indicator is the specific sign you will look for. For an outcome such as improved job-search skills, an indicator might be whether a participant can prepare a tailored application using an agreed checklist.

Choose a small set that reflects your project rather than trying to measure everything. One or two indicators per priority outcome can be a useful starting point, not a rule. Include both what participants report and, where feasible, an observable behaviour or completed task.

Define each measure before you collect it. Does 'attended' mean arriving at any point, completing most of the session or participating online? Does 'supported' mean one contact or a minimum level of engagement? Consistent definitions make comparisons more meaningful.

• Output: sessions delivered. Indicator: completed sessions recorded against the delivery schedule.
• Reach: people accessing the service. Indicator: unique participants, counted separately from total attendances.
• Outcome: stronger practical skills. Indicator: performance against the same task rubric at the start and end.
• Experience: participants feel listened to. Indicator: responses to a short accessible feedback question, supported by optional comments.

A monitoring and evaluation plan template you can copy

Create a document or spreadsheet with the fields below. Use one row or short block for each priority outcome. Keep project-wide information, such as the evaluation purpose and data protection arrangements, in a short introduction.

The template is an original planning aid, not a mandatory funder format. If a grant agreement specifies different measures, reporting dates or evaluation methods, include those requirements explicitly.

• Evaluation question: what do we need to understand, and which decision depends on it?
• Outcome: what specific change do we expect, for whom and over what period?
• Indicator and definition: what sign of progress will we record, and how will we count or assess it?
• Baseline: what do we know before support begins, and what is missing?
• Target or expectation: what progress is realistic, and what evidence supports that expectation?
• Method and source: register, short survey, practical assessment, interview or another suitable source.
• Timing: when will we collect the starting point, progress evidence, endpoint and any follow-up?
• Responsibility: who collects, checks and reviews the information, and who covers absence?
• Inclusion and protection: what accessible options, privacy information, access controls and retention arrangements are needed?
• Interpretation: what missing data, biases or external influences could affect the result?
• Action and review date: when will we discuss findings, record decisions and check whether changes helped?

Worked example: a six-week employability programme

The following example is hypothetical. It is not a JENY customer result, a sector benchmark or a suggested promise to a funder.

Imagine a charity offering six weekly employability sessions to twenty adults. The team wants to know whether participants develop practical application skills and whether the delivery format helps them stay involved. It chooses two outcomes rather than treating employment within six weeks as the only definition of success.

• Outcome one: participants improve their ability to prepare a job application. Indicator: change on a four-item application checklist. Method: the same short practical task in week one and week six, assessed using written criteria. Owner: the employability tutor.
• Outcome two: participants feel more able to take their next job-search step. Indicator: change on a clearly explained confidence scale, alongside one specific action the participant identifies. Method: a brief starting and closing conversation with an accessible written or verbal option. Owner: the support worker.
• Delivery monitoring: record unique participants, attendance at each session and reasons for leaving when people choose to share them. Review weekly to identify access barriers rather than waiting for the final report.
• Follow-up: offer an optional check-in six weeks after the programme to ask whether the planned action happened. Explain the purpose and contact arrangements in advance, and report how many people responded.

Report the denominator, not just the percentage

Suppose sixteen of the twenty participants complete both practical assessments and twelve of those sixteen improve. The defensible result is: 'Twelve of sixteen participants with paired assessments improved.' That is 75% of the assessed group, not proof that 75% of everyone who enrolled improved.

Report that four participants did not have paired assessments and explain the missing information if you can do so appropriately. People who leave early may have different experiences from those who finish. Their absence is a limitation to understand, not evidence of either success or failure.

Keep attendance totals separate too. Twenty participants attending six times would produce 120 attendances, not 120 people supported. Clear denominators make a modest result more credible than an impressive but ambiguous percentage.

Collect a baseline without making the first session an exam

A baseline records the starting point. Collect it before substantial support begins where practical, using a method that is appropriate for the outcome. Keep the wording and scoring consistent at the endpoint so that you are comparing like with like.

A short conversation or practical task may be more suitable than a long form. Explain why you are asking, avoid making people feel judged and provide accessible alternatives. If you change the method for accessibility, record the change and consider whether comparisons remain fair.

If delivery has already started, do not invent a baseline. Review available records and ask participants about their experiences, clearly labelling retrospective reflections. Use the current evaluation to learn what you can, while improving the plan for the next cohort.

Protect people and keep collection proportionate

A useful evaluation does not require collecting every personal detail that might one day be interesting. Decide what is necessary for the question, tell people how their information will be used and limit access to those who need it.

Use participant identifiers rather than names in working analysis where appropriate, while recognising that coded records can still be personal data. Small groups and detailed quotations can identify someone even when a name is removed. Review what you publish, not just what you collect.

For UK organisations, check your lawful basis, privacy information, retention arrangements and any additional conditions for special-category data with the person responsible for data protection. Agreement to take part in a feedback activity is not automatically permission to publish a personal story or photograph.

Make feedback optional where appropriate and explain that declining will not affect support. If a response raises a safeguarding concern, follow your safeguarding procedure rather than leaving it in an evaluation spreadsheet awaiting the next review.

Turn findings into changes during delivery

Choose review points that fit the project. A delivery team might check attendance and access issues each week, review emerging feedback at the midpoint and assess outcome evidence after the final session. The important thing is that someone owns the discussion and the resulting actions.

Record three things after each review: what the evidence suggests, what you decided to change and when you will check the effect. If evening sessions are difficult for participants, for example, test a different arrangement rather than simply recording low attendance again.

Separate observations from explanations. A drop in attendance is an observation. The suggestion that transport costs caused it is a hypothesis until you have supporting evidence. Ask participants, compare relevant records and remain open to more than one explanation.

Common mistakes that weaken an evaluation

• Measuring only satisfaction: people can enjoy a service without achieving the intended outcome. Ask about usefulness and change as well.
• Choosing targets after seeing results: agree expectations in advance and explain any justified revisions.
• Comparing different groups as if they were the same people: use paired records for individual change and distinguish them from overall group averages.
• Presenting before-and-after change as proof of causation: other services, personal circumstances and wider conditions may contribute.
• Collecting evidence nobody uses: remove unnecessary questions and make time for interpretation, not just administration.
• Writing only for the funder: share accessible findings with participants and colleagues, including what will change because of their input.

Final checklist before your project starts

• The team can explain the evaluation questions and priority outcomes in plain English.
• Indicators, counting rules and any realistic targets are agreed.
• Baseline and endpoint collection are built into the delivery schedule.
• Participants have accessible ways to contribute without unnecessary burden.
• Responsibilities, privacy arrangements and review dates are clear.
• The budget includes the staff time needed to collect, check and interpret evidence.
• Funder reporting requirements are mapped to the plan, with limitations recorded honestly.

Keep your evaluation connected to everyday delivery

The best plan is the one the team can maintain. Start with a manageable framework, test the collection process and improve it as you learn. A small amount of consistent evidence is more useful than a large pile of records that cannot answer your questions.

JENY helps charities keep project activities, attendance, outcomes and evidence together, so reporting can draw on the work already being recorded. Your team still decides what to measure, checks the quality of the evidence and interprets the findings.

An organised system supports evaluation; it does not replace judgement. The goal is to understand what is working, be honest about what you do not yet know and use that understanding to improve support.