Build Evidence Through Evaluations: Getting Started

How to Get Started

1. Determine which grant or contact will be evaluated, the stage of the work (e.g. initial development, ongoing service delivery, completed project) and outline the research questions. Research questions may cover both process and outcome considerations.
2. Select the desired evaluation approach, such as an RCT, interrupted time series analysis or regression discontinuity, that best fits the intervention, its maturity, the population receiving service and the available data.
3. Assess whether in-house capacity exists or additional support will be needed to carry out the evaluation. If third-party support is required, initiate a procurement process to secure a vendor.
4. For future contracts or grants, build evaluation requirements, as well as necessary funding, into the budget and the RFP. Set expectations for the role of the contractor and program participants, including required timing for data submission to facilitate the evaluation. Download these templates to embed evaluation requirements into your agency's grants and contracts.
5. Consider holding information sessions with contractors before launching the evaluation to address questions and set expectations for existing contracts that may not include explicit evaluation requirements,
6. Determine how information from the evaluation will be shared with key stakeholders such as funders, service providers and participants, policymakers and the public. Keep in mind that this may require producing different versions or summaries of the evaluation results to speak to the respective stakeholder needs or interests.
7. Establish desired feedback loops to gain insights from the evaluator while the effort is ongoing and to address potential issues that may arise, such as a lack of expected data or staffing challenges by the provider.
8. Hire or deploy in-house evaluators to carry out the selected approach and produce the desired reports.
9. Assess results and determine mechanisms for incorporating findings into ongoing or future projects. Consider how to incorporate necessary process changes to the way the evaluation is funded, timed or carried out.