The case studies were chosen by the leadership team at Community Waitakere. While Community Waitakere operates in the community development space, the case studies are not entirely from organisations that do community development. For example, the NZ Mountain Safety Council is primarily in the outdoor education and safety space, but was chosen as a significant non-government organisation in New Zealand that is using outcomes-based evaluation. The Foundation for Youth Development also works in areas broader and outside community development, being primarily a youth development organisation. It was chosen to profile an organisation with significant university partnerships and a strong commitment to research and evaluation from inception.
These case studies are not necessarily best practice, and were not chosen on that basis. They were chosen for the learning that community development organisations may gain from understanding their approach to evaluation.
They collectively represent a variety of evaluation activity that is both formal and informal. The evaluation activity detailed in these case studies range from evaluation that has significant budgets through to evaluation without any budget. Some evaluation uses external expertise, and other evaluation activity is conducted entirely within the organisation