Seminar: Program Evaluation for Social Change Organizations

This seminar introduces participants to a variety of monitoring, evaluation, adapting, and learning (MEAL) approaches that are used by public sector and nongovernmental professionals in organizations engaged in social change and human development work. We will engage with the meaning, perspectives, and methods of evaluation, as well as power dynamics that influence the profession. This includes choosing designs appropriate to the stages of a program cycle, identifying and meaningfully engaging different stakeholders through participatory approaches, collecting data that is most useful to stakeholders, monitoring implementation, understanding causality, appreciating the limits of what can be measured through evaluation techniques, upholding ethics in evaluation, and using information generated through evaluations to improve programs and policies and to promote organizational learning.

Seminar participants will review and critique evaluations of social and human development projects sponsored by foundations, civil society organizations, governments, and multilateral agencies. The course concludes with participants presenting an original monitoring, evaluation, adapting, and learning plan where they apply critical seminar concepts to a project of their choice developed iteratively over the semester.