It is suggested that there are some serious problems with defining the concept of empowerment evaluation, with its underlying assumptions, and with its proposed justification. Although devolving some responsibility for evaluation is good, devolving all of it to stakeholders is bad, as is thinking that the devolution creates a new kind of…

Results of a survey of 564 Canadian and American evaluators and evaluation project descriptions provided by a subsample of 348 evaluators indicate that evaluators support a utilization-focused, stakeholder service orientation and think that maximizing evaluation use is a primary responsibility of evaluators. (SLD)

Fostering self-determination is the defining focus of empowerment evaluation, but this type of evaluation overlaps participatory, collaborative, stakeholder-involving, and utilization-focused approaches to evaluation. It becomes critical to distinguish empowerment evaluation from other approaches as the field debates its boundaries and…

This paper examines issues involved in conducting evaluations when participation by the target groups, typically minorities and disadvantaged groups, may put them in jeopardy. Argues that participation by target groups as cooperative partners throughout the evaluation is a way of addressing this dilemma. (SLD)

Responses of 246 internal and external evaluators about reporting and communicating results show that most use traditional reporting formats, are only moderately satisfied with reporting efforts, recognize many constraints to reporting, and consider high stakeholder involvement essential to effective evaluation. (SLD)