The Evidence Working Group created an online Guide as a living library of resources that will be updated regularly. It aims to support the gathering and sharing of evidence by religious and faith-based organizations about their work to alleviate poverty and enhance the wellbeing of their local communities.
The purpose of the survey was to understand whether and how the Guide could be useful as a resource to potential local users.
More than 11 EWG members facilitated the surveys and there were 33 respondents. The summary document of the survey findings is available here.
Top five lessons learned from the Survey are:
- Useful Guide: the majority of respondents found the guide and its contents and the presentation useful. For instance, 100 percent of the respondents said the page titled “Why should faith groups care about evidence?” answers why faith groups should care about evidence. Similarly, over 80 percent of the respondents said that the “how does faith shape our understanding of evidence?” page answers how faith shapes our understanding of evidence. Six said they would share this guide with colleagues and one said “with some changes.”
- Diverse resource library: The resources on the page were helpful to the respondents. Respondents appreciated the variety of the examples on data collection, the diverse subjects covered, the different types of data collection and styles were the most helpful about the six resources shared in the library. The lesson learned here is that resources of similar nature should be updated and added.
- Interesting resources: The CRS, URI and Tearfund’s reports were respectively of most interest to the respondents and their organisations. This suggests that the resources were relevant to most of the members and similar resources should be uploaded.
- Data collection: The majority (75 percent) of the organisations surveyed currently collect information on specific faith-inspired metrics (for example hope, trust, love, relationships etc ).
- Improvement: One major area of change would be to include more detailed information for faith groups that are interested in beginning or improving their evidence collection processes. Nearly 70 percent of the respondents said faith groups would need other information to start.
Next steps
- EWG members will send any additional feedback on EWG Guide through Survey Monkey or to Stacy
- Stacy will work with co-chairs to make changes to EWG Guide front page, add glossary and edits considering language accessibility and for increased user understanding
- JLI will start, as capacity allows, to add new examples for the library
- JLI will reach out to partners to work on examples based on the template
- Next meeting in June. To get involved join the EWG here