Translating Evaluation Evidence into Impact within Sports Development

The objective of this chapter is to provide guidance for programme planning teams in sport organisations to design and orient their evaluations towards impact. First, we highlight the importance of considering evaluation in conjunction with other planning processes, such as what a programme does to achieve its goals (implementation) and what is to be done with evaluation findings (impact). Second, we discuss ways of considering evaluation as a skill-building activity, and ways to foster a learning culture that leads to evaluations that are responsive to organisational change. Third, we outline ways to identify internal and external knowledge users who can shape the ways evaluations are conducted to enhance their relevancy, usefulness, and usability. Fourth, we discuss the different communication strategies that planning teams can use to share their findings with internal and external user groups to enhance their uptake. Finally, we discuss future directions for enhancing the research and practice of evaluation, highlighting the importance of partnering researchers with knowledge users to share capacity in these efforts and increase evaluation’s impact.