title: Developmental evaluation and the 'Stronger Economies Together' initiative in the United States.
abstract: This article describes a developmental evaluation and explains its impact on the Stronger Economies Together (SET) initiative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in collaboration with the Nation's four Regional Rural Development Centers and Land-Grant universities. Through a dynamic process, this evaluation of the early phases of an initiative led to continuous program alterations based on feedback. The relationship of the evaluation team to the initiative's coordinating team enabled seamless transfer of observations, suggestions, and recommendations to decision makers. The multidisciplinary character of the evaluation team provided a diverse set of perspectives with a depth of subject matter and knowledge from relevant fields. One lesson is that developmental evaluators must be flexible, nimble, creative, and adaptive. When expected data are imperfect or nonexistent, the team must collect alternate information and make recommendations to improve data collection. As the initiative proceeded and modifications came about, the evaluation team had to recognize the changes in the program and focus on different questions. This experience with developmental evaluation provides insights into how interdisciplinary teams may need to change course and conduct a developmental evaluation when a formative evaluation was originally envisioned.
authors.affiliation: Program Monitoring and Research Division, Office of Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, DC, United States. Electronic address: beth.w.honadle@hud.gov.
authors.forename: Beth Walter
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Honadle
authors.affiliation: School of Planning, Portland State University, United States.
authors.forename: Marisa A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Zapata
authors.affiliation: School of Planning, University of Cincinnati, United States.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Auffrey
authors.affiliation: School of Planning, University of Cincinnati, United States.
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: vom Hofe
authors.affiliation: School of Planning, University of Cincinnati, United States.
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Looye
mesh_terms: D057217:Economic Development; D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods; D012424:Rural Population; D014481:United States; D016885:United States Department of Agriculture; D014495:Universities
keywords: Developmental evaluation; Program monitoring; Regional planning; Rural development