Beyond Participation: Evaluating the impact of community engagement Workshop

Community engagement and evaluation go hand in hand. Evaluation helps us learn, do our work better and be accountable to our communities. Evaluating the work we do with the community, and the relationships we develop along the way, are crucial to demonstrating our social impact.

In this workshop, we will unpack the nexus between engagement and impact, and how evaluation can help us to better understand the work we are doing with communities.

We’ll use common evaluation tools, like the theory of change, program logic and outcomes framework, to map out the purpose of our community engagement, our processes, and how we can measure our performance. We’ll explore ways to evaluate whether people are engaged, the impact of that engagement, and how to apply principles of community engagement to our evaluation.

The workshop will be conducted by Dr. Kathleen Blair and Hannah Morgan, from the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion, University of Technology Sydney.

Topics discussed in this workshop include:

• An Introduction to evaluation
• Evaluation and community engagement: participatory evaluation approaches
• Evaluation tools: Theory of change and program logic
• Writing evaluation questions and determining criteria
• Measuring performance using an evaluation data matrix
• Centering the voices of community in evaluation

Presenters:

Dr. Kathleen Blair is a seasoned evaluator with over a decade of experience designing and managing evaluations across diverse sectors, including government, non-profits, and academia. Specialising in collaborative evaluation frameworks, she excels at embedding evaluation practices and building organisational capacity. As Research and Evaluation Manager at CSJI, UTS, Katie has led numerous social impact evaluations and developed capacity-building programs to support community organisations in participatory research and program planning.

Hannah Morgan is an accredited Social Worker with over 15 years of experience across health, government, community, and NFP sectors. She began her career at Royal North Shore Hospital, providing psycho-social support to patients with acute spinal cord injuries. She then spent 6 years working as a Principal Guardian at the Office of the Public Guardian (NSW), advocating for individuals with disabilities. Hannah has led multiple government-funded projects focusing on disability, culturally diverse communities, and LGBTIQ+ inclusion. At LGBTIQ+ Health Australia, she conducted quantitative and qualitative research on LGBTIQ+ people and palliative care. She has extensive experience in participatory research and codesign with diverse communities.In 2021, Hannah completed a Master of Evaluation at the University of Melbourne with first-class honours. She then worked in program evaluation at the Black Dog Institute, Australia's leading mental health research centre. In 2023, she joined UTS, serving as Acting Evaluation and Research Manager at the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion before returning to her substantive research and evaluation role. Hannah also collaborates with the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Education, conducting research on evaluation (RoE). Her expertise spans social impact, participatory research, and evaluation methodologies, with a strong focus on driving meaningful change.

This session is run as part of the Carnegie Community Engagement Network offerings. If you work, study, or partner with a member institution of the network you can access this session with a discount. Please get in touch with your Carnegie representative at your university or email carnegie@engagementaustralia.org.au for more information.

About the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion

The Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion is the gateway for partners to engage with the university's resources and expertise to maximise social impact. We work with community organisations, not-for-profits, social purpose businesses, and individuals.

Contact us

If you have any questions about the session or the Carnegie Community Engagement Network, please contact carnegie@engagementaustralia.org.au

* Please note that the workshop will not be recorded.