An Approach to Constituent-Based Evaluation of Community Development Efforts

Abstract

Evaluation of community development efforts can contribute to protecting effective programs from politically motivated challenges and identifying programs that need to be modified or terminated. Often, however, evaluations do not deliver these benefits; most evaluations fail to take into account the economic and political contexts of programs. This paper describes a comprehensive, constituent-based evaluation approach that can yield useful information for policymakers, program planners, and administrators. Constituent-based evaluation provides information on the achievement of the formal program goals and objectives. It also provides feedback from significant constituents on their levels of satisfaction with the program's manner of implementation and the benefits it delivers to various groups. This comprehensive approach can yield additional and useful data for program planning and implementation decisions.