PRISM – evaluating the outcomes and impacts of small/medium-sized conservation projects

PRISM is a toolkit that aims to support small/medium-sized conservation projects to effectively evaluate the outcomes and impacts of their work.

The toolkit is divided into four main sections:

1. Introduction and Key Concepts
2. Designing and Implementing the Evaluation
3. Modules
4. Method factsheets

This toolkit has been designed primarily for use by practitioners carrying out or supporting small/medium-sized conservation projects. While there is no set definition for a small/medium-sized project, this toolkit has been designed to apply to projects with some or all of the characteristics listed below (although much of the guidance it contains will be relevant for other projects too).

• Budget between $5,000 – $100,000
• Short timeframe (<5 years)
• Small project team, often with limited capacity in relation to evaluation
• Limited resources available for evaluation
• Projects taking place in complex environments, where it can be difficult to separate project outcomes and impacts from other factors.

In an ideal world, all projects would build in evaluation from the start. It is recognised however that many users may be picking up this toolkit mid-way through a project, towards the end of a project or after the project has ended. Therefore this toolkit has been designed so that it can be used at the beginning, middle or end of a project. Although note that some methods will only apply to projects that have considered evaluation at the outset.

The toolkit has been developed by a collaboration of several conservation NGOs with additional input from scientists and practitioners from across the conservation sector: