Outcome Harvesting

Outcome Harvesting is a method that enables evaluators, grant makers, and managers to identify, formulate, verify, and make sense of outcomes. The method was inspired by the definition of outcome as a change in the behavior, relationships, actions, activities, policies, or practices of an individual, group, community, organization, or institution.1 Using Outcome Harvesting, the evaluator or harvester gleans information from reports, personal interviews, and other sources to document how a given program or initiative has contributed to outcomes. These outcomes can be positive or negative, intended or unintended, but the connection between the initiative and the outcomes should be verifiable.

Unlike some evaluation methods, Outcome Harvesting does not measure progress towards predetermined outcomes or objectives, but rather collects evidence of what has been achieved, and works backward to determine whether and how the project or intervention contributed to the change. In this sense, it is analogous to sciences such as forensics, anthropology, or geology, which interpret events or contributing factors that led to a particular outcome or result by collecting evidence and answering specific questions (Box 1). Information is collected, or harvested, from the individual or organization whose actions influenced the outcome(s) to answer specific, useful questions. The harvested information goes through a winnowing process during which it is validated or substantiated by comparing it to information collected from knowledgeable, independent sources. The substantiated information is then analyzed and interpreted at the level of individual outcomes or groups of outcomes that contribute to mission, goals or strategies and the resultant outcome descriptions are used to answer the questions that were initially posed.