An evaluation of the Comic Relief Smiles Fund What We Did Comic Relief commissioned Apteligen to evaluate the Smiles Fund, a national grant programme supporting a diverse portfolio of community organisations working to improve the emotional wellbeing and resilience of vulnerable people facing poor mental health and wellbeing. The programme brought together projects with very different delivery models, target groups and levels of evaluation experience, creating the challenge of generating credible programme-wide evidence while recognising the unique contribution of each funded organisation.

How We Did It

We delivered a mixed-methods programme evaluation that combined quantitative and qualitative evidence from projects across the funding portfolio. Alongside evaluating the overall programme, we worked directly with funded organisations to strengthen their monitoring and evaluation approaches, helping them articulate outcomes in a consistent and meaningful way. Our analysis brought together evidence from multiple sources to identify common themes, understand variation in delivery, and produce a explicit picture of how different approaches contributed to improved wellbeing, confidence, resilience and social connection.





What The Project Achieved The evaluation demonstrated the collective impact of the Smiles Fund while recognising that different projects achieved positive outcomes in different ways. By identifying the common factors that supported success across the programme, we helped Comic Relief understand what worked, for whom, and under what circumstances. The findings informed future funding and programme development, while giving funded organisations practical evidence they could use to demonstrate their impact, improve delivery and strengthen their own future funding applications.

A copy of the final evaluation report is available here, plus individual project summaries here. Other projects Report Participatory evaluation of a men’s health and wellbeing initiative in Hastings and St Leonards Community developmentHealth & wellbeingLocal and national policyEvaluationUser research Report Evaluating the impact of an NHS careers programme for the armed forces community Health & wellbeingLocal and national policyEvaluation Report A study into the effectiveness of assistive care technologies on falls detection and prevention Health & wellbeingLocal and national policyEvaluationUser research Get in touch Send us a message or give us a call to discuss how we can help. [email protected] 01923 253 220 Please leave this field empty.

📌 Evaluating the benefits of participating in comedy and the arts for improved mental health and wellbeing (Amreli)
🏢 Apteligen
📍 Amreli