Participatory evaluation: A tool for community development practitioners

Abstract

The field of community development is under constant and severe pressure to demonstrate what it is accomplishing. State and Federal legislators as well as the administrators of public programs need to justify the allocation of funds on rational priority terms. When a funding crunch arrives there is need for evidence of the output of community development to weigh in the balance with other social service programs. When this time arrives, it is too late to start thinking about the development of instruments and the collection of data. In addition to these external needs there is a great need to provide much more systematic and substantive feedback to community members about what they are learning and accomplishing during the CD process.

This paper presents a case study of participatory evaluation which suggests a way of going about evaluation which not only provides meaningful data for decision makers but at the same time provides important feedback to the community.