Cost-Inclusive Evaluation: Why, What, How?

Led by the Washington Evaluators, February 8, 11:00am - 12:00pm ET

‘‘Everyone talks about costs . . . but nobody evaluates them!’’ Actually, that paraphrasing of Mark Twain’s witticism is no longer entirely true. Due perhaps to an overwrought concern about lack of expertise in measuring costs, combined with a strong preference to evaluate outcomes that are more socially and politically acceptable than crass ‘‘cash,’’ evaluation has devoted overwhelmingly more articles, pages, courses, and workshops to measuring and improving outcomes than to measuring, let alone improving, costs. This, however, has begun to change. I suggest that we are now entering the age of cost-inclusive evaluation (CIE).

Now, in the second decade of the 21st Century, there are numerous ways to include costs in formative as well as summative evaluations to improve use of those evaluations in planning, advocacy, and philanthropy. Building on Henry Levin's ingredients model from the 1970s that conceptualized costs not as price but as the types, amounts, and monetary values of resources consumed by a program, today's many forms of cost-inclusive evaluation (CIE) also consider program activities, for more formative evaluation, nonmonetary outcomes such as Quality-Adjusted Life Years Gained, and societal-level impacts on future expenditures and future incomes for individual program clients as well as for society at large.

This webinar by Dr. Brian Yates explores a model-based contemporary taxonomy of CIEs, provides up-to-date examples of each, and suggests which forms of CIE can best for which program, for which purpose. This talk also notes strategies for recognizing and reducing racial, gender, and age discrimination in CIE.

If you have questions about this event, please email programs@washingtonevaluators.org.