In May 2006, Clean Air Partnership (CAP) and Greenest City, with support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, launched the Building Evaluation Capacity (BEC) project.

The Building Evaluation Capacity project is an evaluation process that provides an opportunity for environmental non-government organizations (ENGOs) in assessing their programs’ outcomes, understanding of the impacts that their programs have on their communities, organize their efforts to motivate individuals, and influence public policies and actions.

The goal of the BEC project is to provide expertise and support to ENGO partners who are interested in applying the evaluation methodologies into their own projects and programs.

Although, the evaluation is an integral part of the projects’ design for larger scaled businesses; the ENGO communities have just recently recognized the importance of the evaluation processes and are taking measures in integrating these processes into their own project proposals and planning. 

The first phase of the BEC program focused on developing a Building Evaluation Capacity Toolkit. Furthermore, the toolkit was used by Clean Air Partnership, Greenest City and Earth Day Canada to test the effectiveness of their programs.

In December 2007, Earth Day Canada, Greenest City and Clean Air Partnership received additional funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation to expand the BEC project and provide evaluation training to a larger group of ENGOs. In the second phase of the BEC project, ENGO partners will participate in a series of training workshops to gain an in-depth knowledge of the evaluation process, logic model and theory of change. In addition, they will learn how to use the evaluation toolkit and how to access the evaluation resources.

Starting in September 2008, BEC will host educational workshops every month for the ENGO partners.

Click here for more information on the BEC project