The National Evaluation
The National Lottery Community Fund commissioned a team lead by the University of Sheffield and CFE Research to carry out a national evaluation of the Fulfilling lives: Supporting people experiencing multiple disadvantage programme. You can find out more about the team here.
The evaluation had the following key aims:
- Track and assess the achievements of the programme and to estimate the extent to which the partnerships and interventions contribute to these.
- Calculate the costs of the projects and the value of benefits to the exchequer and wider society.
- Identify what interventions and approaches work well, for which people and in what circumstances.
The evaluation also aimed to:
- Explore how projects were delivered, understand problems faced and to help identify solutions and lessons learned.
- Assess the extent to which The National Lottery Community Fund’s principles (such as co-production and partnership working) were incorporated into project design and to work out the degree to which these principles influenced success.
The evaluation used a range of methods to gather evidence. A common data framework was agreed so that the same set of information was collected from every funded partnership. To complement this we carried out in-depth interviews with partners, stakeholders and beneficiaries to understand more about how projects were delivered and their impact.
We also collected data from people experiencing multiple disadvantage in other parts of the country that have not received the Fulfilling Lives investment. This allowed us to compare what was achieved by the partnerships with what might have happened without the funding. We call this the counterfactual.
We also provided a comprehensive learning programme to share the evaluation findings. This includes communities of practice, seminars, webinars, blogs, newsletters and conferences.
Each funded partnership also carried out their own local evaluation and research. You can browse local publications on this website too.