Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Hi! We are Hope Gilbert, Eliza Carroll, Celeste Chung, Annika Gude, and Will Minor from Deloitte’s Evaluation and Research for Action Center of Excellence. We assist clients in multi-site evaluation planning, implementation, and design, recognizing how culture shapes their success. Today we’re sharing our multi-site evaluation planning tips to help fellow evaluators succeed in their evaluation planning.
Evaluators value engaging interest-holders invested in the organization or program, but multi-site evaluations can often complicate key interest-holder engagement. Consider building in additional time to capture a detailed understanding of the organizational landscape and culture where the evaluation will occur. Work with interest-holders to identify site leaders to support evaluation activities. Identifying site champions is an effective approach for facilitating and communicating evaluation progress. When evaluation teams establish an understanding of the organizational culture and support within each site being evaluated, data collection efforts become easier as well.
Assessing the data landscape is a foundational step in planning a multi-site evaluation. Given that sites within an organization may differ in data governance, evaluation teams should work closely with organization to understand and document the following at each site: Types of data currently available; data collection procedures, including data sharing agreements and data access requirements; data security; and timing of data collection. If possible, evaluability assessments before site selection are advised and can provide upfront assessment of data availability, systems, and capacity to collect data before engaging organizations in deeper evaluation work. While assessing the data landscape may take additional time on the front or back-end of evaluation planning, multi-site evaluation teams with a thorough understanding of their data landscape are set up for success. This understanding strengthens their overarching evaluation plan and enables buy-in from key invested parties.
No organization is fully ready to participate in an evaluation, and meeting people where they are is critical to success. Helping them build capacity is often necessary for long-term successful collaboration. When evaluation teams engage in capacity building, multi-site evaluations are more likely to have standardized data strategies that simultaneously result in more cohesive and actionable outcomes. To help evaluation teams receive the most from trainings, we recommend integrating the following: customizing training content for each location in a multi-site evaluation, using plain language in training materials, offering multimodal training options, and identifying clear protocols and timelines for evaluation teams to follow. While specific training content may be tailored, using a consistent approach across sites can enhance capacity building and empower teams to unlock deeper insights while driving continuous improvement.
When sharing multi-site evaluation findings, evaluation teams should tailor report formats to meet the specific needs of invested parties (e.g., site staff, leadership, community, and investors) to maximize relevance and impact. When evaluation teams emphasize site-specific successes and challenges, they bring the data to life and offer compelling anecdotes that resonate personally with key invested parties. Teams may also consider incorporating accessible dashboards to enhance visibility and transparency on evaluation findings and progress with multiple interest-holders—provided potential barriers like permissions and technology are addressed early. By presenting findings in ways that connect with each group, evaluation teams not only foster engagement but also drive meaningful program improvement across all sites.
Effective multi-site evaluations rely on evaluators to understand the organizational landscape and culture, data availability, capacity building, and organizational need to maximize impact. What are your lessons learned that foster success of multi-site evaluations? Drop a comment to share your thoughts with us.
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