Longitudinal Evaluation of Our Bright Future
In 2016 ERS was commissioned, alongside associates Collingwood Environmental Planning (CEP), to evaluate the 7 year, £33m Our Bright Future Programme, funded by The National Lottery Community Fund (TNLCF) and led by the Wildlife Trusts. The programme sought to bring together the environment and youth sectors, engaging young people aged 11-25 to become involved in environmental activities and support them to lead future environmental change. This case study demonstrates our experience of managing a complex, multi-year strategic evaluation of a programme coordinated by a consortium of eight partner organisations and delivering 31 projects across the UK.
Over the duration of the commission, our work has included:
Scoping and design: participatory evaluation planning, developing the logic model and evaluation frameworks, designing reporting tools and evaluation guidance for projects. We ran workshops across the UK to gather ideas and feedback from programme staff and young people.
Baseline reporting: a comprehensive desk-based review of existing research focussing on young people’s transition to adulthood, their behaviours in relation to social action and the environment.
Learning and capacity building: events, webinars, good practice guides and other resources, including e.g. Monitoring Well-being
The mid-term Report: considering the outcomes of the programme as well as evidence-based recommendations about programme delivery. The report was published online and presented to 50 MPs at a parliamentary event co-designed by young people in March 2019.
Read our final report here:
Our final deliverables comprise 6 Learning Papers about key topics for the sector and a core Evaluation Report focussing on outcomes for young people, communities, and the environment. These outputs specifically focus on the benefits of the consortium and portfolio approach over and above individual projects.