Independent Evaluator
Hands on Islamic Art
Heritage Lottery Project
The Brief
Project Evaluator/Evaluation Team for the evaluation of a three-year heritage project called “Hands On Islamic Art”.
The project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and is to be delivered by The Barakat Trust.
We are seeking a suitably experienced project consultant, researcher and report-writer. Ideally you will have knowledge of heritage and/or arts projects; and an excellent track record of involvement in Lottery and/or heritage-related projects.
The evaluation will be expected to conform to Heritage Fund guidelines and the appointed consultant will be expected to have demonstrated a track record in evaluating Heritage Lottery funded projects.
Purpose:
To monitor and evaluate a three-year National Lottery Heritage Funded-project whose aims are:
- To enable museums/heritage venues to make the most of their Islamic art collections as assets to be used for public engagement purposes.
- To share expertise of successful public engagement initiatives and lessons learned from mentor’s own professional experience.
- To enable curators and educators to see heritage and heritage collections from a different perspective including an audience perspective
- To share expertise about good curatorship
- To help develop projects that enable community members who know little about the Islamic world to discover its culture through art held in British collections, and, whenever possible, to discover the longstanding relationships between Britain and the Islamic world, and Britain’s history as a multicultural place.
- To help develop projects to encourage groups that traditionally do not engage with the heritage sector to engage more actively through engaging, accessible programmes.
- To help develop projects that encourage British Muslim groups to engage with collections of Islamic art in Britain, and to contribute meaningfully to the interpretation of such collections by sharing what those objects mean to them and the ways in which they reflect their cultures.
- To foster a greater sense of belonging and integration among BAME groups, especially British Asians and British Muslims.
The project will achieve these aims by disbursing community grants to 3 applicants per year, over a three-year period and providing them with mentorship, technical support and assistance, access to local networks, publicity and promotion.
Aims of the Monitoring and Evaluation Process
As the project will follow a one-year cycle that will be repeated three times, we would like the monitoring and evaluation process to help us reflect on lessons learned in every cycle to refine the project as it develops.
As such, our aim is that the evaluators will be engaged from the beginning of the project as our experience to ensure that the evaluation process is properly embedded in the entire lifespan of a project. Moreover, experienced evaluators can use their experience to inform the project, and come up with solutions to challenges that arise along the way.
Tender Specification:
An evaluator or evaluation team with previous experience monitoring and evaluating cultural heritage project where the focus in on public engagement, preferably with experience of National Lottery Heritage Funded projects.
The ability to work iteratively with the project team and grant recipients and to draw on past experience to help the project overcome challenges and unknowns.
The monitoring and evaluation process will feed into the strong mentorship approach that this project intends to take, and as such evaluators should be willing to provide recommendations and advice not just simply to report on what has taken place.
We would especially welcome evaluators who have experience directly evaluating community group experience, demonstrating the skills to get people who do not normally engage in heritage to share their experiences of interacting with this project. Some of this engagement may need to take the form of verbal engagement with audience members who may be reticent or uncomfortable communicating in writing.
How We Expect the Evaluation Process to Run
This is the process that we plan to follow:
- Share the project proposal with prospective evaluators before they tender, so that they are aware of the aims and targets of the project at large.
- Hire evaluators at the beginning of the project and expect them to attend the kick off meeting with the three grantees, and mentors.
- Share the 3 successful community grant applications with the evaluators so that they are aware of their specific objectives and targets.
- Following appointment, you will be expected to establish a clear evaluation framework and methodology for capturing ongoing evidence of success and project outcomes with qualitative and quantitative information and feedback from participants and users.
- Agree on a schedule of the monitoring and evaluation deliverables for the first year of the project to include:
- Producing a checklist of material required from each project (Project outline, photographs, feedback from public engagement sessions)
- Circulating checklist of material to each of the three community granted projects.
- A short interim report, and a short end of year report
- Arrange a schedule of meetings between evaluators and community grant recipients. We tentatively propose a general meeting at the beginning of the project, and a second meeting 4 months into the project (in each of the three years of the project) and then a meeting at the end of the year. (This schedule is to be repeated in the second and third years of the project).
- Arranging a schedule of meetings with The Barakat Trust Project Team – tentatively proposed are 4 meetings per year.
- Evaluators providing an interim report 6 months into each year of the project, and a final report at the end of each year.
- Organising a workshop at the end of the third year to summarise the lessons learned and reflect on the three-year project. Community grant recipients from the first and second years will also be asked to attend.
- Producing a final project report at the end of the third year.
Reporting:
The monitoring and evaluation specialist will liaise with a designated person from The Barakat Trust.
How you would deliver this project
In no more than 1,500 words, please describe how you would deliver this project, including:
- How you will provide us with regular feedback on the progress of the construction phase of our project, and raise any potential risks to the timeline or budget;
- Your overall vision for how you will deliver the evaluation;
- How you will work with us in the early stages of the project to ensure the necessary research and data collection measures are put in place to enable you to deliver a comprehensive report;
- How you will ensure the data needed is actually collected;
- How you plan to allocate the budget for this project;
- How you will manage this project to ensure it is delivered on time and on budget;
- The experience which you believe makes you the right person/company to deliver this project for us.
- Please provide details of between one and three similar projects you have delivered in the past five years.
If you would like, you may include a small number of illustrative documents (e.g. photos, videos or website pages) with your submission, in addition to the 1,500 words.
Fees:
The budget available for this work is £18,000 for the entirety of the project. The project will run for three years This must cover all costs to complete this work, including consultant fees, and any materials and resources needed to undertake the research and data-gathering element of the project.
More information
You can find more information on the “Hands On Islamic Art” project here https://barakat.org/download/hands-on-islamic-art-the-barakat-trust-approved-press-release/
Expressions of Interest
Interest applicants/teams should submit evidence of relevant professional experience, a short covering letter, and a 1,500 word proposal to info@barakat.org
Deadline:
Proposal and supporting documents should be submitted by 10 June 2022.
