Impact evaluation is the first as well as the final step in the event hosting process.
Anyone considering staging a sporting, cultural or business event needs to start by understanding what their town, city, region or nation wants to achieve. Then they must evaluate the extent to which their hosting options are able to achieve those aims – asking, can this event deliver the impact we’re looking for?
The eventIMPACTS toolkit can help you do that.
It shows you the variety and scale of impacts events can deliver, so you can identify those most relevant to your wider strategic goals and select your best hosting options accordingly.
Then it will help you measure those impacts, so you can understand the extent to which the event you staged achieved your objectives, and those of your stakeholders too.
Setting objectives
Impacts are made, not ordered in.
So, once you’ve identified the impacts you want to achieve and the event that can deliver them, it’s equally important to understand what needs to happen for it to do so.
The answer to that question must recognise the strategic, political, financial and organisational context within which the event will take place. It should consider how the impacts will be delivered within those constraints, and the resources and processes required. It needs to identify any barriers that will get in the way, and to be clear on how they can be overcome.
This is the basis of the initial statement of strategic objectives that should underpin impact evaluation for any event and must answer the following questions:
- What economic, social, media and environmental objectives do you want this event to achieve?
- What specific resources will you allocate to achieving these goals?
- Who will be responsible for delivering them?
- How will they do so?
- How realistic is it that the objectives can be achieved within these constraints?
- How will you know if they are?
- How long will it take to achieve the event’s impact goals?
- How will you evidence success?
- What resources will you need to monitor and evaluate the event’s impacts?
- Is it actually cost effective to do this?
This checklist will make sure you give your event the best chance of delivering the impacts you and your stakeholders are looking for. The full toolkit will then help you evaluate the extent to which it does so.