UNT Dallas Urban SERCH Institute Nonprofit Governance - Program Evaluation

Evaluation has a single goal: to judge the worth or merit of whatever is evaluated.

Michael Scriven, The Methodology of Evaluation

Primarily, evaluation is used for organizational and program improvement. Evaluation serves a multitude of purposes; specifically for nonprofit organizations, as it provides information that will improve the quality of decisions whether to continue programs, initiate new programs, or change the structure of a program. Nonprofit employees who learn how to develop logic models for evaluation or examine data to draw conclusions are more likely to contribute to overall organizational improvement.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify the purpose of program evaluation, its benefits, and its challenges

2. Examine the tools for program evaluation and determine when to apply them

3. Design a Logic Model for a nonprofit organization

4. Develop and implement an evaluation plan

5. Analyze and interpret results

6. Communicate results to various stakeholders

7. Build capacity of staff and organization

Host or Publisher UNT Dallas Public Leadership Program