Ruth L Knight

This article charts the innovative evaluation journey an Australian nonprofit organisation, The Pyjama Foundation (PJF), has taken when designing an evaluation instrument to gain feedback from programme beneficiaries. PJF sought to develop a formal, targeted approach to hear the perspectives of children living in out-of-home care, who are involved with their Love of Learning educational programme. The design process included two focus group discussions with foster carers, programme volunteers, and child development experts. From this, an evaluation survey for children to use was developed. The survey’s underpinning conceptual framework, based on key protective factors influencing educational outcomes for children in out-of-home care, is a key contribution of this research. In addition, the design and implementation issues PJF encountered contribute insights for other nonprofit organisations and evaluators and academic knowledge towards evaluations involving children and vulnerable s...

The Pyjama Foundation is an Australian charity working to improve the literacy and numeracy outcomes for children in foster care. The foundation delivers the Pyjama Foundation Love of Learning programme, a learning-based mentoring programme in which volunteer ‘Pyjama Angels’ visit children in care each week to read books, play games and engage in other learning-based activities.This study surveyed 121 Love of Learning mentors (‘Pyjama Angels’) to assess their perceptions of the relationships they had developed with the children they mentored and of the children's improvement in their literacy skills, a key aim of the programme.The statistical data analysis based on the structural equation modelling and multiple regression approach showed that several factors had a statistically significant impact on the mentors’ perceptions of the children's improvement in literacy skills: relationship with the child, child's engagement and tenure in the programme, and frequency of meeti...

The Queensland Government is heavily reliant on community organisations to provide services to Queenslanders, and the Department of Communities has a role to play in working with the community sector to strengthen its capacity to deliver services. I am committed to ensuring community organisations are supported in meeting their responsibilities in a changing and complex service delivery environment.

This discussion paper offers a summary of recently published literature and key theories about systems change and evaluation. It includes several case studies of programs and organisations to illustrate how they have applied theory. For those seeking a deeper dive into systems thinking and change, we have included links to references and other relevant resources, including guiding questions.

This study is a major step for CentacareCQ in understanding how social outcomes might be valued and developing ways to articulate the benefits and challenges of mapping and measuring outcomes to continuously improve services and make more informed decisions for better social responses.

This report provides background to the 2013 natural disaster that occurred in Bundaberg, and describes some of the negative impacts of the flooding on people’s lives, including their quality of life, health, finances and relationships. It then describes and values the outcomes for stakeholders, in particular the service participants who received support and assistance provided by CCRS.

The methodology of this study aligns with social accounting principles, which involve collecting evidence about the changes (outcomes) that occurred for key stakeholders and articulating how change was created. It accounts only for the value that the CCRS created, so that stakeholders can draw reasonable conclusions about the success of the service. Natural disasters always create considerable economic, environmental and social impacts, but this study chose to focus on the social impacts and outcomes because CCRS was funded to provide mental health and wellbeing support and education.

After consulting with stakeholders, an impact map was developed and financial proxies were identified that could place a monetary value on the outcomes identified. The findings conclude that CCRS provided the government and community with a social value of at least $1,984,486. That means at least $2.83 worth of value was created for every $1 invested in providing services and support to victims of the flood.

The report concludes with a discussion about the impact of natural disasters and the importance of continuing to provide services that build personal and community resilience. It outlines five recommendations that include encouraging service providers to map and measure outcomes so they can continuously improve their services, remain accountable, make more informed decisions, and create better social response systems and policies for regions that are susceptible to natural disasters.

The Economic and Social Impact Study of Australian Agricultural Shows set out to identify and measure
the economic and social impact of Australian agricultural shows with the aim of providing valuable
information to those who support the show movement through participation, sponsorship and
volunteerism.

To learn about the impact of agricultural shows, this study completed a document analysis and gathered
feedback from 1,900 people. The results have been collated and are detailed in this report. The findings
present government and community stakeholders with a clearer understanding of how the show
movement plays an important role in increasing social capital and economic development.

The Third Sector is experiencing unprecedented change as nonprofit organisations pursue their mission, organisational excellence and sustainability.

This research collected data from employees of Australian nonprofit human service organisations. Instruments to measure organisational culture and change readiness were validated. The relationships between perceptions of organisational cultures, change readiness, job satisfaction and intentions to leave were explored.

Findings indicate flexible organisational cultures influence employee attitudes more positively than control cultures. It identified that leaders have a significant role to play in developing and fostering change readiness and job satisfaction. This improves employees’ adaptation to change, increases staff retention and organisational sustainability.