Program Evaluation Capacity in Human Services Organizations

The increasing call for accountability combined with increasing competition for resources has resulted in program evaluation becoming a major focus for nonprofit leaders, funders, accrediting organizations, board members, individual donors, the media and scholars. Within this focus is emerging attention and literature on the concept of evaluation capacity building to discover what organizations require to be able to effectively and efficiently evaluate their programs. This study examines this topic within the environment and stakeholder relationship dynamics of nonprofit human service organizations using a multi-stakeholder research approach incorporating qualitative interviews of executive directors, board chairs, program staff, funders and evaluators, as well as two case studies. Results indicated that effective evaluation capacity building requires more than just funds, personnel and expertise. This study suggests that stakeholders interested in effectively building capacity to evaluate programs should be cognizant of the political, financial, social, intellectual, practical, structural, cultural and contextual implications.