When I worked for funders, one of the challenges we had was that organizations often only mentioned one of the types of evidence - either they were clear on the need, or they were clear on why what they proposed would address the problem. Rarely was it both. I call this evidence of need and evidence of approach.
Evidence of need is helping people understand how you know that something is a problem or a gap. Sometimes, we are so immersed in our work that we take this for granted. We don't have to do a full-scale needs assessment to figure this out, either. As I've mentioned earlier, a great way to do it is to ask your staff what gaps they're facing. Another way is to ask your community what's holding them back from reaching the goals that your organization is trying to support. Gather what you can to answer the question "How do we know this is a need?"
Evidence of approach is helping you figure out "What works to address the need?" You can do this by, as I wrote last week, asking your staff what they do that's not funded. You can also ask the people you support what they want to make the situation better. Another useful idea is to research what others are doing (and this is a great task for those summer students!)
I encourage a combination of learning from staff and participants, to get the different perspectives. You can have staff ask the participants, as long as you've shared what you're hoping to learn, how you'll use the information, and you ensure that you loop back to them to tell them what happened as a result. I usually set up a Google form to collect the information and then bring it into a staff meeting to analyze it.
Too often, we think we have to do big, rigorous, systematic projects to gather evidence. This is such a disservice to our organizations and our communities. Some knowledge is better than none, so go out there and get it!
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