Evaluation Capacity Building

Evaluation capacity building (ECB) is an approach for helping people learn how to conduct an evaluation and think evaluatively in the process. ECB is designed to help people acquire evaluation knowledge, skills, and attitudes and apply them appropriately in practice. According to Donald Compton, Michael Baizerman, and Stacey Hueftle Stockdill, ECB involves efforts to develop and sustain practices within organizations and make the use of evaluation processes and practices routine. The goal of ECB is to increase evaluation capacity in order to increase the probability staff members will assess and document the implementation and impact of their programs.

ECB is being used by community-based organizations, religious institutions, government agencies, foundations, and private industry. It represents a group or institutional understanding of the value of evaluation to ...