Developing an Evaluation Strategy for a Social Action Agency

This article is concerned with the methodological and institutional problems faced by a social action agency in trying to make evaluation an important input to its policy process in which major decisions are formulated and implemented. The discussion focuses not only on the present technical capability of evaluation methods to produce useful policy data, but also on the agency's bureaucratic and administrative structure as it impinges upon evaluation. Consideration is given to such matters as the possible blockages by agency decision-makers of the development and use of evaluation data, the degree of cooperation to be afforded by program managers in field evaluations, and the administrative capability of social action agencies to implement the changes in the field implied by evaluative results. Thus, the article presents some of the problems that must be faced in trying to formulate an effective evaluation strategy in the real world of a social action agency with its evaluation problems that often defy present technological tools, its bureaucratic struggles, and its complex administrative machinery; and it offers a few tentative suggestions for moving towards such a strategy.