At Sul & Associates, the success of all clients is a top priority. Many have questions regarding the evaluation process. Here are some questions to consider when hiring an evaluator.

What is evaluation?

Evaluation provides a formal way of measuring whether a project is accomplishing its goals and objectives and provides an opportunity to develop and improve a project. An evaluation done right can help project teams understand why things work well or why things don’t work. Evaluation also allows you to consider possible improvements.

The evaluation process can help managers to understand the progress of programs. An evaluation could demonstrate to funders, supporters, and other stakeholders just what is being done. Sometimes it is important to share with similar organizations the types of strategies that have been employed by the project and the resulting outcomes of these efforts. An evaluation can also be used to share with project staff the types of accomplishments being made by the project.

Why evaluate?

When evaluating a project, it is important to step back from daily concerns to get an overall picture of the progress of the project. Evaluators try to find the links between project pieces in order to determine whether the project in operation is similar to the one that was planned.

Because it is difficult to find project staff with enough time or distance from the project, an independent evaluator is sometimes brought in to evaluate a project.

What should you know about the evaluator?

There are some key characteristics of evaluation firms to consider when hiring an evaluator.

  • The educational training of the evaluator is important. Some professional evaluators wander into the profession through various routes. However, there are graduate programs in evaluation that produce graduates with knowledge of the latest evaluation techniques and strategies.
  • Evaluation is but one component of an overall process designed to meet the goals of the client. It is important that the evaluator know about project planning and processes.
  • Participation in professional evaluation societies allow evaluation professionals to interact and learn from each other and network at regional and local conferences. It is important for evaluators to participate in such societies. The American Evaluation Association and the San Francisco Bay Area Evaluators association are two such societies.
  • Evaluators often work in various disciplines. While evaluators should have experience in many fields, it is important that they have experience in the client’s field.
  • For some projects, an evaluation team will need to be assembled. It is important for clients to understand who will be participating on the evaluation team. It is not unusual for evaluation teams to include both professionals and graduate students.
  • Since the members of the evaluation team will be interacting with project management, staff, and participants, it is important that they have the ability to work with lots of different types of people with varying degrees of education, income, and, English language skills.

What are the moral, ethical, and legal responsibilities of the evaluator?

While it is important for the interaction between evaluators and clients to remain cordial, there may be times where the evaluator may have to share unfavorable findings with the client.

Ethically, evaluators, just like researchers, have a duty to locate the truth and report upon it, regardless of the consequences.

Evaluation materials constructed for use during the evaluation as well as all findings typically belongs to the hiring group. Some agreements allow the evaluator to utilize the data (anonymously) to share at conferences with other evaluators and researchers in the field.

What does it cost to do an evaluation?

The typical evaluation contract is for about 10% of the grant that supports the project. Some agencies want to keep administrative costs low so 5% of the grant is reasonable for their projects. Sometimes, the funder has a specific purpose for stressing a strong evaluation component and they will allocate up to 15% of the grant for evaluation purposes. A good indicator of the amount to be set aside for evaluation will be found in the number of points assigned to evaluation activities in the grant RFP.