Collaborative, Participatory, and Empowerment Evaluation: Stakeholder Involvement Approaches

From pioneering leaders in the field, this is the first book to provide a solid foundation for three major stakeholder involvement approaches: collaborative, participatory, and empowerment evaluation. Highlighting differences among the approaches, the authors focus on the role of the evaluator, who may be in charge of the evaluation, share control, or serve as a "critical friend," leaving stakeholders in control. Practitioners are guided to select and implement the most appropriate framework for the purpose and scope of a given evaluation and the needs of community members and funders. For each approach, a chapter on essential features is followed by two chapters presenting actual sample evaluations--for example, early childhood and community health initiatives, an aquarium, a project with Google, and more. The concluding chapter discusses similarities and circumstances in which the approaches can be combined.

David M. Fetterman, PhD, is president and CEO of Fetterman and Associates, an international evaluation consulting firm, and the founder of empowerment evaluation. Dr. Fetterman has worked in more than 17 countries--in South African townships and Native American reservations, as well as in Silicon Valley tech firms, including Google and Hewlett-Packard--and has 25 years of experience at Stanford University, serving as a School of Education faculty member, the School of Medicine director of evaluation, and a senior member of the University administration. He currently serves as a faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute and Claremont Graduate University. Dr. Fetterman is past president of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) and the Council on Anthropology and Education of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). He is a recipient of honors including the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Evaluation Theory Award and the Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Evaluation Practice Award from the AEA; the President’s Award from the AAA; the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Research on Evaluation Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association; and the Award for Excellence in Research from the Mensa Foundation. He is the author or editor of numerous books.

Liliana Rodríguez-Campos, PhD, is Director of the Graduate Certificate in Evaluation and Professor in the Department of Educational and Psychological Studies at the University of South Florida. She is a former director of the Center for Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Measurement. Nationally and internationally recognized for her contributions to collaborative evaluation, Dr. Rodríguez-Campos is co-chair of the Collaborative, Participatory, and Empowerment Evaluation Topical Interest Group of the American Evaluation Association (AEA), serves on the board of directors of the Evaluation Capacity Development Group, and is a recipient of the Marcia Guttentag Award from the AEA, among other honors. She has facilitated many training sessions and presented her work in more than 30 countries.

Ann P. Zukoski, DrPH, MPH, has conducted research and evaluation in community-based and public health settings since the 1990s, with a particular interest in using participatory evaluation to assess systems and policy change. She leads the Evaluation and Research Team at the Office of Statewide Health Improvement Initiatives of the Minnesota Department of Health. Previously, Dr. Zukowski was a senior research associate at Rainbow Research in Minneapolis, a faculty member in the Department of Public Health at Oregon State University, a senior evaluation associate for the California Public Health Institute, and a senior research associate at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. She has conducted research and evaluations funded by a variety of national, state, and county government agencies, as well as private foundations. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Berberati, Central African Republic.