Check Your Understanding
OBPE provides you with a valuable tool for planning and evaluation. Think about the list of statements below. Is this something you can realistically expect OBPE to do for your museum or library? Click on the "Answers" button at the bottom to check the answers.
Prove your program benefited the community
No. While OBPE can demonstrate some results, its methodology can't prove definitively that a program caused an impact.
Making writing reports easy
Nothing makes writing easy. But the planning documents you prepare in OBPE will usually make writing reports - to funders, press releases, to your Board, a lot easier.
Help keep staff, partners and funders in agreeent on goals by stressing outcomes ("so what?") rather than the process.
Yes. By making end results the basis of planning and evaluation, everyone directs their efforts towards a common desired outcome that everyon has agreed is the human impact you want to have on your target audience.
Assist in fundraising and grant writing by providing data on outcomes
Yes. OBPE helps you demonstrate the value of the organization on the community in concrete terms that connect what you are doing to what you've achieved.
Indicate needed improvements to programs and services
No. OBPE can indicate what is working and what isn't, but it can't tell you waht changes need to be made to improve the outcome. That's the job of te program planner.