Empowerment Evaluation
Evaluation need not be something 'done to' you. It can be an empowering tool for change - helping those involved with an organisation, programme or community better understand and improve it.
The Innovation Network (Innonet) is a US-based non-profit organisation dedicated to developing and sharing evaluation tools and know-how with nonprofits and funders, so they can do their work more effectively.
It has produced a very useful Evaluation Workbook (Adobe Acrobat, 202 KB), based on an empowerment approach. It covers:
- why evaluate,
- identifying your evaluation questions,
- developing an evaluation plan, and
- practical advice on various data collection methods.
The Collaborative, Participatory, and Empowerment Evaluation Group is part of the American Evaluation Association. While a cumbersome web site, it includes many useful resources and links. It provides a brief introduction to the concept of Empowerment Evaluation at the beginning and concludes with more extension discussion of the concepts and some of the debate between its proponents and its critics.
In between are listed
- the key texts on the subject,
- links to a number of self-help guides and
- other useful resources, including
More information:
Click on Survey and Evaluation Software (in the left-hand menu) for information on software especially suited to Empowerment Evaluation.