Evaluation Practice Among Community-Based Organizations: Research Into the Reality

Increasingly, government, foundations, and others are asking community-based organizations for more evaluation information. Although the demand for this information may be increasing, the field knows very little about the way organizations are responding to this demand. Using data collected from interviews and a mail survey of community-based organizations, this article addresses five research questions: (a) What types of activities do community-based organizations use to evaluate their programs? (b) What types of data do they collect? (c) How do they collect data? (d) Who has the primary responsibility for conducting evaluation? and (e) Where does the funding come from? The answers to these questions are intended to serve as the basis for future discussions about building evaluation capacity and improving community-based services.