37 - Developing All Types of Evaluation Budgets Using Checklists

Abstract Information: This professional development workshop will teach participants to design the full range of sound evaluation budgets. The interactive, hands on workshop will school participants on the six factors to consider in developing evaluation budget, the ethical imperatives in budgeting evaluation, evaluation budget line items (personnel, travel, consultants, supplies, equipment, services, and indirect costs), and developing different types of evaluation budgets (fixed-price budgets, budgeting under grants, cost-reimbursable budget, cost-plus a fee, cost plus a grant, cost plus a profit; budgeting under cooperative agreements, and modular budgets).
The workshop will engage participants to use illustrative RFPs to apply the checklist in designing the full range of evaluation budgets; and provide participants with relevant follow-up materials on how to obtain additional information and assistance related to designing evaluation budgets.

Relevance Statement: Fundamentally, the tasks of designing and budgeting evaluations need to go hand-in-hand in the process of planning and contracting an evaluation. In designing the evaluation, the evaluator should keep budgeting needs in mind and make budget-related notes that will be helpful later in producing the evaluation budget. In this workshop, we discuss the basics of evaluation budgeting and then guide the participants through the fundamentals of preparing an evaluation budget. Particularly, we discuss six fundamental factors to consider in developing an evaluation budget; identify and explain an extensive list of potential line items in evaluation budgets and discuss how to reference them in determining evaluation staffing positions; advise evaluators how to keep evaluation budgeting on a high ethical plain; identify, assess, and give examples of applying six major types of evaluation budget agreements; and present and explain how to apply a generic evaluation budgeting checklist.