Job vacancy

Make/Shift Evaluator

Make/Shift is looking for an Evaluator to co-design and deliver an evaluation that identifies if and how our key aims are being met and the most significant changes emerging from our work.

Who we are

We are Make/Shift.

A new Creative People and Places project in the Amber Valley, Derbyshire.

We want more people to be able to make, create, do, repair, grow, share, care for and connect with what matters to them in the places that they live. We think this shift is essential for making our everyday lives more creative, connected and circular.

We know that every home, street, village, and neighbourhood is full of potential, but that power and resources aren’t distributed fairly. Our mission is to shift more power and resources to local people to make things happen together in the places they care about and to invite their neighbours along to join them … unleashing the maker in everyone.

We plan to weave together a network of makers, doers and connectors rooted in the Amber Valley who are supported through access to shared resources and creative platforms and inspired by thinkers, creators, artists, makers and story tellers from near and far.

Our strategy and approach will shift and change as we start to bring the Make-Shift programme into being with the creative people and places of Amber Valley. 

What are we looking for?

We are looking for an independent evaluator with experience of working on community-led, place-based, action research projects.

We’re a new project, starting off on our journey. We’re committed to taking as an asset based, relationship centred, values led approach, embedding four key SHIFTS into how we are making, being, doing and learning:

Shifting away from

Shifting towards

We would love to hear from you if you are:

Timescale: April 2023 to end of May 2025

Project fee: £30,000 in total inclusive of all expenses and VAT (if applicable)

Location: Remote

Reporting to: Make/Shift Creative Producer

Deadline for expression of interest: 10 March 2023

The brief

Make/Shift is looking for an Evaluator to co-design and deliver an evaluation that identifies if and how our key aims are being met and the most significant changes emerging from our work.

We want a collaborative and reflective evaluation framework that helps us to inform the programme as it develops and to understand what is and isn’t working. It needs to help us learn, reflect, and change as the programme develops.

The evaluation must be accessible to a wide range of audiences, providing them with compelling evidence, insights and stories of impact and change.

Context

The evaluation needs to clearly answer the three research questions set by our core funder Arts Council England for the national Creative People and Places programme:

  1. Are more people from places of least engagement experiencing and inspired by the arts?
  2. To what extent was the aspiration for excellence of art and excellence of the process of engaging communities achieved?
  3. Which approaches were successful and what were lessons learned?

Additionally, we want to assess the impact of the programme and how we are delivering against our vision and Theory of Change for Make/Shift. The priority is to meet ACE evaluation needs, but we would love to hear your ideas on how we can include evaluative aspects of story collecting, connections to people and place, and creative approaches to evaluation.

The evaluation framework should measure Make/Shift’s performance against our stated outputs, outcomes, and impact, as set out in our Theory of Change. These will be reviewed annually using data from the evaluation and will be reported to our strategic partners and funders including Arts Council England. Any evaluation framework must take into account that Make/Shift is an action research project, meaning we need to be able to learn quickly from what we’re doing and adapt approaches accordingly.

Work required

Evaluation of Make/Shift needs to be an iterative process and include both formative and summative methodology. Data collection will need to be integrated into all of our activities. The evaluation needs to inform our approach and decision making at every level, from projects to strategy and longer-term vision.
Evaluation will be a reflective process focused on learning and change. Therefore, we are looking for a partner to work collaboratively with us on this journey, suggesting how lessons can be fed back into the programme as it develops.

As of 13/02/2023:

We anticipate that the work will:

They should cover but are not limited to:

Experience and skills

We are looking for the following experience and skills from an Evaluator:

As of 13/02/2023:

Importantly, we would like to work with an Evaluator who supports the vision and aims of Make/Shift. We are keen to make sure the evaluation approach is consistent with our values and principles and that people and their creativity are at the heart of everything we do. As such, we would welcome ideas of how the evaluation approach proposed would respond to this.

How to apply

Please send us an expression of interest that includes:

We are happy to accept single proposals from multiple organisations or individuals in partnership – but will require one lead partner to be accountable for the delivery of the contract.

Please send your application to b.delaunay2@derby.ac.uk with the subject line Make/Shift Evaluation Proposal.

Timeline

If you wish to discuss the brief before applying, please contact Rachel Smith, Creative Producer, at r.smith3@derby.ac.uk.