BeadforLife believes in the value of rigorous and ongoing evaluation to measure the impact of programs and guide new program development.  We do extensive baseline and exit surveys with all of our members, community development evaluation, and evaluation of our educational work in North America. We consciously invest resources in staff time in evaluation so that we know we are achieving our goals, and constantly improving our approach.

Recent evaluation data from Uganda shows:

• 99% of members said life has improved since they joined BeadforLife.  
• 85% of respondents opened a business, built a home, or did both during their membership in BeadforLife: 42% accomplished both, while 18% purchased a home only, and 25% started a business only.  
• Income of the respondents went from $30-$50 a month before joining BeadforLife, to an average of $227 a month in 2007.  
• The percentage of families who share a latrine with 10 or more families decreased from 50% in 2005, to 6% today.  
• Most members had never had a savings account before joining.  After 2 years in the program, the average member had $436 in savings.
• Over 90% of members report that their diet, health and housing situations have improved during their membership in BeadforLife.

In North America our evaluation reveals:

• The percent of people who reported very good or expert knowledge of global poverty went from 30% before hosting a BeadforLife party to 69% afterwards.  
• 79% of people said they were likely or certain to take another action against extreme poverty within 6 months. 

Additional top-line data from our ongoing evaluations has been tabulated in the following reports:

May 2009 – Final Evaluation of Second Graduating Group

Feb 2008 – Final Evaluation Data of First Graduating Group

Dec 2007 – Evaluation Data from BeadParty Hosts

Aug 2005 – Mid-term Evaluation for First Two Groups