intelligent measurement

Using video for evaluation

March 13, 2025 at 7:34 pm Leave a comment

When thinking about communicating evaluation findings, an often overlooked medium is to use video, as Better Evaluation says “When produced well, videos provide an excellent means to convey messages coming out of an evaluation.”

Creating a short video can be an excellent way to communicate key findings to audiences. But they do require some preparation and planning, notably:
– Think about what will be the topic and story of the video – what messages of the evaluation findings will the video focus on?
– A video is a great opportunity for stakeholders and beneficiaries to speak up and have their voices heard – of course you need their consent to use their images / voices.
– Think of what images can illustrate well the intervention being evaluated – as it is a visual medium! For example, if it is a community-based activity, film the activity and the community.
-These days you don’t need a big budget and expensive equipment – you can film a lot on a smart phone – but if you are not skilled in editing, a small budget for editing would be needed.

Also important is that the evaluation commissioner must be onboard – as ideally the evaluation team would do some filming during data collection. The challenge for the evaluation team is that is rarely in an evaluation ToR to do a video – the team has to be bold and propose it!

I’ve had the chance to use video several times for evaluation and would always like to do more.

Here is an example where we had a simple approach; filming testimonies of staff for an evaluation of an intervention for the INGO WaterAid – then weaving them together with a narrative – all under 6 minutes:

And in another example, we used graphics, interviews and testimonies for a climate change evaluation to present a comprehensive overview of the evaluation findings:

And with nearly a 1000 views on YouTube, it’s certainly more than read the report!

Here is a more professionally produced example from the Global Environment Facility; a great summary of the evaluation findings in under 5 minutes:

For further tips and hints for using video in evaluation, read this post from Better Evaluation.

Entry filed under: communicating evaluation results.