Evaluating your project can help you learn whether it has met its goals, but only if you decide up front what you want to evaluate and how you will go about doing so. The purpose of conducting an evaluation is "to answer practical questions of decision-makers and program implementors who want to know whether to continue a program, extend it to other sites, modify it, or close it down."¹ When evaluating your media project, you will want to be able to show that it does one or all of the following:

• Allows you to reach people in a variety of places—such as their schools, their homes, their workplaces, and even in their cars.

• Helps you build relationships with representatives of the media in your school or community.

• Educates members of your community about crime prevention and informs them of the many positive activities of youth through articles, broadcasts, performances, or artwork.

• Reaches your target audience—whether they're children, adults, teenagers, or seniors—with an important crime prevention message.

• Builds partnerships with members of the media.

In evaluating your media project, also consider whether and how well it has met the following more general crime prevention goals:

• Reduces crime.

• Reduces fear of crime.

• Remains cost effective.

• Has a lasting impact.

• Attracts support and resources.

• Makes people feel safe and better about being in your school or community.

Be sure to include an evaluation step—such as keeping track of all phone calls or responses you receive on every article or broadcast—in your overall plan. Consider the positive and the negative feedback that you get, and ask yourself what you can do better to reach your goals, to involve more people in your project, and to spread your message to a wider audience. Then, adjust your activities to strengthen your project.

Learning to evaluate the things you do is a good skill, one you can apply to all aspects of your life. Good luck with your project and—Have fun!

1. National Crime Prevention Council, What, me evaluate? Washington, DC: National Crime Prevention Council, 1986

Youth in Action Bulletin

March 2000     Number 14