The Ontario Network of CAPC/CPNP projects decided to partner with CCBR on this project, because of the need for projects to gain greater capacity in needs assessment and impact evaluation. Needs assessments and impact evaluations are beneficial not only for service providers to check their assumptions and participate in continuous learning on how to better serve diverse community members, they also help to more coherently communicate project purpose and impact to potential funders and partners. The learnings gained can help projects to identify areas for improvement that could be strategically served through new community partnerships. Needs assessments help to build the case that dollars are being spent on where they are needed most and impact evaluation captures successes, which can be useful information for promoting a program to volunteers, partners, and donors.

This capacity building and toolkit also included an EDI-D (equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization) framework, which aimed to prepare projects to use measures such as sex, gender, and race analysis, in addition to more equity-based measures in their evaluations. CCBR drew from a previous project conducted a year prior (with the same funders) to build this EDI-D framework. The project was called, “CAPC/CPNP Projects Reflecting Together: Promising adaptations and future directions toward equity, diversity, and inclusion.”

To build the toolkit, the Centre for Community Based Research tailored content about needs assessment, impact evaluation, and EDI-D for the particular audience of early childhood and prenatal program staff. A steering committee of CAPC/CPNP staff and Ontario Network leaders guided the development of this project and toolkit. Three workshops were held to pilot the toolkit, providing valuable feedback for the final product and its dissemination.