AEA members have diverse interests in different aspects of evaluation. To facilitate these interests, AEA created Topical Interest Groups (TIGs) as subgroups of the organization. AEA members may join up to five TIGs as a benefit of membership, and TIGs may only have AEA members as TIG members. The activity level of TIGs varies greatly from nearly dormant most of the year, to active participation in annual conference activities, to highly active year around with newsletters, web sites and working committee structures.

Roles: TIGs fulfill a variety of roles within AEA. TIGs:

• Provide a structure and conduit for sharing knowledge about common evaluation interests.

• Provide an alternative mechanism for communicating and disseminating professional information.

• Provide a focal point for collecting and synthesizing the literature in a specific area of the profession.

• Increase awareness of current research in that area and track its evolution.

• Nurture new members and help them feel connected to the organization.

• Serve as a showcase for the intellectual diversity of the organization.

• Generate and try innovative ideas.

• Serve as a conduit for outreach to related professional organizations.

• Provide an organized means of raising issues to the leadership of the association.

• Facilitate opportunities for collaborative research and evaluation.

• Create opportunities for mentoring (especially of young evaluators), evaluation-related training and enhancement of member services.

• Cultivate, foster and develop association leadership.

• Play a major role in annual conference programming and coordination, including:

• Serving as a primary vehicle for organizing and sponsoring conference sessions, through soliciting presentations and refereeing submitted proposals.

• Serving as strong supporters of and contributors to the Presidential Strand.

• Providing cohesion to and a vehicle for a natural clustering of similar topics for the conference program.