Get Out Get Active (GOGA): Collaborative evaluation in action

A sports hall with a number of chairs arranged to be socially distanced for a group activity with a group of older people together — Photo credit: GOGA Sunderland/ Foundation of Light

Context

Get Out Get Active (GOGA) brings together the least active disabled and non-disabled people in our communities and supports them to be active together.

Since 2016, GOGA has reached over 160,000 disabled and non-disabled people through over 3,300 different activities and interventions, training over 3,500 staff and volunteers to support truly inclusive delivery. With almost 36,000 registered participants, the programme has tried and tested different activities across its 39 localities around the UK. The intent was to help reduce physical inactivity amongst all programme beneficiaries, better connect people to their community through local services, and tackle social isolation. The programme embedded inclusive practice, ultimately encouraging those least active in the community to become more active.

Over 7 years of delivery, the GOGA programme has received £9.3m from organisations such as Spirit of 2012 (where it represented its largest single investment), Sport England, and the London Marathon Foundation. From the start and throughout this programme, Wavehill provided the project evaluation.

Approach

Working continuously in close collaboration with all project partners and funders across the UK, Wavehill developed a programme theory of change, a comprehensive evaluation framework, and delivered all aspects of the resulting methodology. Our approach was based on partnerships, relationship-building, and co-production to ensure a flexible and inclusive approach. This enabled emerging learnings to help shape project practice and planning. When challenges around delivery occurred, this enabled an ‘in-flight’ shift, resulting in better outcomes for beneficiaries, project partners, and funders.

We also worked closely as a learning partner with the project team to review findings and discuss and explore alternative formats to disseminate project outcomes. We co-created a range of impact reports to support programme delivery, funding bids, and partnership development. There was a strong focus on ensuring these outputs are more visual and accessible which encouraged greater engagement across a wider range of stakeholders.

We have been working with Wavehill since the start of GOGA in 2016. This relationship has helped us to embed evaluation processes from the very beginning of the programme and demonstrate the true impact of our work across the UK. GOGA is more than a programme, it is an approach that teaches us and organisations to adapt, listen and learn.

Helen Derby, Strategic Lead Programmes, Activity Alliance

Impact

Over the course of this project our findings have demonstrated the successful impact GOGA has had both within local communities and nationally. It has helped to shape the development of ‘The GOGA Approach’ as a concept that can be applied by all those working with the least active to provide inclusive delivery. GOGA 2020 - 2023, has tested the ‘GOGA approach’ with different population groups. Our evaluation findings have helped identify the key components of a participant-centred approach that considers past experiences, addresses barriers, aligns with preferences, and provides ongoing support to encourage sustained participation in physical activities. This has supported on an ongoing basis, a programme that sustainably increases physical activity levels, improves wellbeing, tackles isolation, and increases community involvement. It maintains broadly positive perceptions of disabled people. Furthermore, our work has calculated that GOGA 2 demonstrates good value for money generating £4.60 benefit per £1 of programme investment.