26 - Empowerment Evaluation and Social Justice

Abstract Information: Empowerment evaluation is a stakeholder involvement approach to evaluation. It is aimed at learning and improvement. Empowerment evaluations help people learn how to help themselves and become more self-determined, by learning how to evaluate their own programs and initiatives. Key concepts include a critical friend (evaluator helping to guide commiunity evaluations), cycles of reflection and action, and a community of learners. Principles guiding empowerment evaluation range from improvement to capacity building and accountability. The basic steps of empowerment evaluation include: 1) mission: establishing a unifying purpose; 2) taking stock: measuring growth and improvement; and 3) planning for the future: establishing goals and strategies to achieve objectives, as well as credible evidence to monitor change. An evaluation dashboard is used to compare actual performance with quarterly milestones and annual goals. The role of the evaluator is that of a coach or facilitator in an empowerment evaluation since the group is in charge of the evaluation itself. The workshop is open to colleagues new to evaluation as well as seasoned evaluators. It highlights how empowerment evaluation produces measurable outcomes with social justice-oriented case examples ranging from eliminating tuberculosis in India to fighting for food justice throughout the United States. Additional examples include empowerment evaluations conducted with high-tech companies such as Google and Hewlett-Packard as well as work conducted in rural Arkansas and squatter settlements in South Africa. Employing lectures, activities, demonstrations, and discussions, the workshop will introduce the theory, concepts, principles, steps of empowerment evaluation, and technological tools of the trade.

Relevance Statement: According to Stewart Donaldson, AEA past-president, "One of the greatest evaluation innovations of the past two decades has been the development of a professional and systematic approach to self-evaluation called empowerment evaluation." This workshop provides members with an opportunity to learn how to conduct an empowerment evaluation from the founder. In addition, the workshop is timely and relevant. Clients, including foundations and nonprofits, are increasingly looking for ways to involve stakeholders in the evaluation. Empowerment evaluations build evaluation capacity, which contributes to sustainability. Empowerment evaluation is a stakeholder involvement approach to evaluation and helps communities take charge of their own lives instead of fostering dependency. In addition, empowerment evaluation builds evaluation capacity among community members. This particular empowerment evaluation workshop also highlights its contribution to social justice issues ranging from eliminating tuberculosis in India to fighting for food justice in the United States.