Planning and proposing evaluations to support project success

Faculty who are interested in leading grants, education and outreach projects, and other initiatives need evidence to make data-based decisions and demonstrate successes. Evaluations are essential for supporting these efforts and are often required to obtain funding. In fact, a strong evaluation plan within a proposal can ensure alignment between clearly constructed goals and activities in order to promote the likelihood of a project's success as well as provide reviewers with insight into how the faculty plans to use data in order to make midcourse corrections to ensure success. Once faculty learn how evaluation works and can support the achievement of their research and educational goals, they will be better prepared to successfully plan, implement, and improve projects. In this article, we describe the importance of evaluation, considerations when planning evaluations, and recommendations for working effectively with external evaluators.