• Community engagement in context
  • Community engagement - an overview
  • Community engagement in a representative democracy
  • Key challenges for the public sector
  • Implications for public sector managers
  • The context for engagement
  • Clues to good community engagement
• Planning CE
  • Community engagement and the policy/planning cycle
  • Project goals
  • When is engagement necessary?
  • Community engagement objectives
  • Community research
    • Media research
    • Community profiling
    • Community segmentation
    • Community and issues analysis
  • Key communication messages
  • Selection of engagement techniques
  • Managing risk
  • Evaluation planning
  • Planning transition and exit strategies
• Implementing CE
  • Working with communities
  • Organisational culture
  • Resourcing
  • Structures and processes
  • Continuity and follow up
  • Representation and control
  • Coordination
  • Other issues
  • Embedding good practice
• Methods
  • Overview of methods
  • Methods of information-sharing
  • Methods for consultation and deliberation
  • Methods for active participation
  • Advanced participative methodologies
  • Choosing an engagement method
• Event management
  • Event engagement processes
  • Choosing a facilitator
  • Structuring the event
• Evaluating CE
  • Introduction to evaluation
  • Principles of evaluation
  • Identifying outputs and outcomes
  • Purpose and approach to evaluation
  • Evaluation criteria and indicators
  • Methods of measuring community engagement
  • Steps in evaluating community engagement
• Risk management
  • Identifying risks
  • Assessing risk
  • Managing external risks
  • Managing internal risks
  • Risk assessment and management plan
• Skills
  • Community engagement skills profile
  • Options for skills development
  • Building the skills of your team

Identifying outputs and outcomes

Clearly articulating the community engagement activity is the most important aspect of any evaluation, because it guides the development of research questions and performance criteria which will be used to measure the success of the activity.

Ideally, an evaluation framework is developed during the planning phase of community engagement activities (refer to Planning community engagement). Good planning identifies the following:

• Goals, e.g. “To improve the quality of service delivery by involving service users in the development of a new service delivery program.”
• Objectives, e.g. “To collect information from a representative range of service users about future service delivery.”
• Inputs, e.g. six months’ time, $20 000· Outputs, e.g. community consultation activities
• Critical success factors, e.g. gaining a representative range of participants, responding to feedback promptly.
• Outcomes
  • Short-term outcomes, e.g. policy makers better understanding the needs of service users.
  • Medium-term outcomes, e.g. a greater capacity to participate within the community.
  • Long-term outcomes, e.g. more efficient service delivery.

Refer to Identifying issues and program planning diagram (38KB).

This logic connects community engagement activities with their intended outcomes. A way to identify expected outcomes is to ask “if, then” questions. For example, if we involve community members in developing a service delivery program, then the program will more accurately reflect the community’s needs and aspirations.

Identifying outputs and outcomes allows criteria and indicators to be developed to assess how effectively engagement activities achieved their intended purpose.