Evaluation for Improvement: A Seven-Step Empowerment Evaluation Approach provides an in-depth analysis and practical application of Empowerment Evaluation. Empowerment Evaluation (EE) is gaining a lot of attention in the evaluation community. The overarching goal of this approach is to empower a program’s stakeholders with the capacity to effectively plan, implement and evaluate their own programs. Underlying this is a focus on social justice, where stakeholders, including staff, participants, volunteers, and people indirectly affected by the program, have the power to decide what is evaluated and how. The approach involves extensive planning and effort, that when carried out effectively, allows organizations to transition to conducting program evaluations without the assistance of the original evaluator. In most cases, program participants are actively involved and are also empowered. The practicality of this skill is immeasurable, as the organization will establish a foundation for improving its strategies for a lifetime.
When giving or receiving Empowerment Evaluation, it is important to understand roles and when it is appropriate.
What are the roles of participants in an Empowerment Evaluation?
Empowerment Evaluation is a collaborative effort from both the evaluator and the stakeholders of the program that is being evaluated. The evaluator must carry out his or her evaluation but also engage the stakeholders, while the stakeholders role is to actively participate in the evaluation as they learn how to effectively conduct its methods in the future.
Although the evaluator determines the structure of each EE process, his or her role is usually to coach the organization’s staff to engage stakeholders, describe the strategy, choose an evaluation design, write reports describing conclusions, and work to ensure that evaluation results are used to improve organizational evaluation capacity (A Seven-Step Empowerment Evaluation Approach).
There are many things program stakeholders might experience during an empowerment evaluation. They may conduct interviews with program participants, develop surveys for the evaluation, analyze and interpret data, etc. By practicing these evaluation methods, stakeholders will gain skills to transfer to their own future evaluations.
When is Empowerment Evaluation appropriate or inappropriate?
Even when resources are scarce, organizations don’t lose the opportunities for reflection if program stakeholders have the capacity to evaluate.
Empowerment Evaluation is appropriate if the organization would like to assess its successes, impact on desired communities, and its role in equity on an on-going basis. If this is the case, then the organization should look EE to build its own evaluation capacities.
There are a few occasions when empowerment evaluation is not an appropriate approach to take. For example, in some instances an external evaluator can add credibility or overcome biases or assumptions. In other cases, the evaluation questions are only going to be answered once, and building for future capacity is unnecessary.
If your interest in this topic has been stimulated, I recommend accessing the above link for the Empowerment Evaluation Approach. It provides a more in-depth analysis of the principles of EE, and even provides a step-by-step approach that can be applied for those who would like to conduct or receive their own EE.
Had you heard of EE before reading this? Has this solved any questions you may have previously had regarding EE? Would you consider an EE approach in the future? Please feel free to respond, I would love to hear your feedback.
