As evaluators, we often fulfill a variety of roles within partner organizations. In recent years, accountability expectations continue to increase, while budgets have often declined. As a result, our work as facilitators for building internal capacity within our partner organizations has become a more frequent request. Such work is defined within the literature as Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB). Stockdill, Balzeman, and Compton (2002) define ECB as “the intentional work to continuously create and sustain organizational processes that make quality evaluation and its uses routine.” This year, the SEG team had the opportunity to support Virginia AmeriCorps programs through small group virtual training events and 1:1 technical assistance to enhance understanding of theory of change, evidence-based practices, performance measurement, and data collection in order to meet the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) evaluation expectations. By increasing internal evaluation capacity, programs can ensure they are collecting high quality evidence to refine their interventions, demonstrate impact, and “tell the story” of their work.
