The Commonwealth Planning and Evaluation Institute

 

Grant Evaluation Services

Working under the leadership of some of the most reputable and highly qualified experts in the country, The Commonwealth Planning and Evaluation Institute, a division of GrantsQuest, specializes in the assessment and evaluation of grants.

Whether your group prepares its own grant proposal or contracts for this work, chances are you will also need an evaluator. Most grantors require grant awarded organizations to contract the services of an independent, third party evaluator to perform summative evaluation, formative evaluation, and monitoring of the grant program. Grant evaluation is extremely important as it will determine your eligibility for future funding and for multi-year renewals of the grant award. Evaluation services can be paid for out of the grant award and should always be performed by a "third party" evaluator, using a sound and balanced methodology – incorporating valid and appropriate statistical testing techniques. This approach ensures that the evaluation is objective…that results are accurate…and provides the funder with the reporting information that is required to ensure your eligibility for future awards.

The Commonwealth Planning and Evaluation Institute is an exceptionally qualified "third party" grant evaluation firm that has many years of experience in evaluating government and privately funded grant programs. We use only doctorate and master level evaluators who have more than 10 years of grant evaluation experience. We also include an implementation planning element early on in all of our evaluations to ensure your staff is informed of its obligations and deadlines under the terms of the grant award. We will be onboard with your organization from the day of award, until the submission of the final evaluation report – which will help to minimize the amount of time that your staff will have to devote to the required paperwork, data collection, and reporting. We specialize in developing process evaluation systems that ensure your organization is well prepared for audits and grantor reviews. Our evaluators will additionally set up a comprehensive outcome evaluation system so that the impact of the grant and its related services are assessed and determined in order to justify future funding and related sustainability efforts.

 

Need to Know Where You Stand?

The Commonwealth Planning and Evaluation Institute brings a wealth of varied experience to any type of evaluation project. With a centrally located headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky, we have served clients in 25 states and international programs are considered on an individual basis.

Our insight into measuring — and improving — our clients’ program effectiveness has been gained as the lead evaluator on more than 120 projects funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and numerous state agencies and private foundations.

After determining the best plan for your group, we produce all progress reports and related paperwork. With the Institute handling the tracking, your organization has more time to make your project a success.

Our team of highly qualified evaluators, educators and administrators develop customized systems to accurately assess the impact of your program, solidly positioning it for audits, grantor reviews – and ultimately for future funding.

Fees vary by project, but are typically around 10% of the total grant project budget (calculated on an actual cost basis with appropriate travel included) and are paid from the grant funds, when appropriate.

Methodologies

A variety of different methodologies may be developed for your project, including, but not limited to:

  • Surveys (online and print)
  • Experimental and quasi-experimental research where possible to determine the impact of an intervention relative to others who do not use the intervention
  • Data mining with project database managers to query the data, collect relevant information, & make connections between data files to help organizations understand patterns in their own information
  • Meta-analysis of existing reports to show the forest instead of numerous individual trees
  • Focus groups with youth participants, parents and program staff
  • In-depth interviews, which allow for a depth of descriptive detail and discussion of sensitive subjects
  • Observation of programs and activities
Staff Qualifications, Honors & Services

The Commonwealth Planning and Evaluation Instituteis an experienced federal and state grants evaluator. The team is lead by Shelley Maberry. In addition to her degrees in Education, she has over 10 years of collegiate teaching experience. Within the past 3 years alone, Shelley has evaluated over 30 federal, twenty state, and numerous private grants totaling over $55 million in grant funding.

Additionally, in the past two years, staff have completed over 200 hours of training in Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; Pittsburgh; New York; Chicago and Atlanta. They have also received certificates of completion for intensive evaluation trainings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Lastly, the team has presented at numerous state and federal conferences, including Mrs. Maberry serving as keynote speaker for the Department of Health and Human Services. Below is a sample listing of other staff qualifications, honors and services.

  • Certified Grants Evaluators
  • Membership in the American Evaluation Association
  • Certified Grant Writers
  • Certified Health Education Specialists (CHES)
  • American Association of Grant Professionals
  • Expert Witnesses and National Presenters on Grant Program Evaluation
  • Department of Health and Human Services Keynote Speaker
  • Collegiate teaching experience
  • National Institute of Health-trained in "Protecting Human Research Participants"
  • Dialogue Group Facilitator, National Conference for Community and Justice Dismantling Racism Program
  • Development of reports, newsletters, educational materials, brochures, ad copy and media releases/PSAs
  • Grant research
  • Grant management
  • Grant review panels
  • Community needs assessment (Instrument design, implementation and data analysis)
  • Submission of evaluation plan to Institutional Review Board
  • Substance abuse prevention programming
  • Data processing with latest Scantron equipment and software
  • Customized database design
  • Data Warehousing
Evaluation Projects

Below is a sampling of the dozens of educational, health care and community improvement projects the team at the Institute have evaluated in the past few years.

  1. 21ST CENTURY COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTERS
  2. ADVANCED PLACEMENT
  3. CAROL M WHITE PHYSICAL EDUCATION PROGRAM
  4. COMMUNITY BASED ABSTINENCE EDUCATION
  5. HEALTHY START ELIMINATING DISPARITIES
  6. HEALTHY START INTERCONCEPTUAL CARE
  7. TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
  8. COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND EMPOWERMENT
  9. POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION PILOT PROJECT
  10. IMPROVING LITERACY THROUGH SCHOOL LIBRARIES
  11. EDUCATION AND JUVENILE JUSTICE MENTORING PROGRAMS
  12. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANTS PROGRAM
  13. READINESS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT FOR SCHOOLS
  14. RWJ/NORTHWEST HEALTH FOUNDATION PARTNERS IN NURSING
  15. SAFE SCHOOLS/HEALTHY STUDENTS
  16. SMALLER LEARNING COMMUNITIES
  17. TEACHING AMERICAN HISTORY
  18. UPWARD BOUND – TRIO GRANT
  19. YOUTH VIOLENCE/PERSISTENTLY DANGEROUS SCHOOLS
  20. ZERR CARE GRANT (ABSTINENCE EDUCATION PROGRAM)

 

Please call us today, at 800-897-0845, to take the next step in successfully implementing your grant awarded program.
 
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