Measuring the Success of Your Grant-Funded Activity

For most grant activities, VegFund requires that you develop metrics ahead of your project to measure the success and effectiveness of your event. Ultimately, our collective goal is to maximize our reach to a non-vegan audience. Here are some tips and tricks for evaluating your event project, and using that information to inform future activities.

1. Determine your metrics ahead of time

The “metric” is the unit you are measuring.  For example, for a food sampling event, available units to measure are the number of people who sample your food, the number of food samples you hand out, and the number of pieces of literature distributed. Metrics can also be qualitative, such as summaries of reactions to a film screening or PPV video. Below are some common metrics you might measure, depending on your activity:

Food Sampling

• # of people served
• # non-vegans served
• # of pieces of literature

PPV

• # of viewers
• # non-vegans
• # of pieces of literature
• notes/quotes on reactions to film

Film Screenings

• # of attendees
• # of pieces of literature
• post-event survey comments

Online Campaigns

• # of impressions
• cost-per-click (CPC)

For grant activities such as Festivals & Fairs, Learning Events, and Innovative Outreach, metrics should include total number of attendees and estimated numbers of non-vegans present. These types of grants events are ideal candidates for simple post-event surveys.

2. Collect your data

Once you have the metrics identified, consider how you’ll collect this data and plan ahead. This could be as simple as keeping a notepad or e-tablet on your table and tallying the number of people who stop by your table or putting brief post-event surveys on attendees’ chairs for them to fill out following your activity. Below are some resources to help you collect your data:

• Event survey (example; adapt or expand to suit your event)
• Sign-up sheet

3. Review and report

Once you’ve collected your data, review your numbers to see how they compared with your estimates ahead of the event or project. Think about what you might do differently next time to help you achieve the metrics you expected or planned on.