Washington Evaluators Affiliate Week: The End of Federal Evaluation? Or Just the Beginning of Something Bigger? By Quisha Brown

Date: Sunday, May 18, 2025

This week members of Washington Evaluators are sharing advice for improving your evaluation skills, making career pivots, and adapting to uncertainty as many in our evaluation community are reassessing their career paths and considering their next steps.

Hello! I’m Quisha Brown, Programs Chair for Washington Evaluators. As evaluators, we are trained to ask deep questions, examine systems, and offer data-driven insights. Yet, in the wake of recent government closures of evaluation-related departments, I’ve noticed a tendency among many of us to focus primarily on what has happened. In this blog post, I’d like to challenge us to focus instead on why and how this could be the beginning of something bigger!

The closure of government departments dedicated to evaluation, data science, and research has sent ripples through our field. But if we stop at outrage or disillusionment, we miss the opportunity to evolve. To remain relevant—and impactful—we must look deeper at the arguments driving these decisions.

So, what’s behind the closures?

The current administration has justified restructuring or eliminating certain departments with the following claims:

• A belief that federal research functions duplicate efforts already happening at the state or local level, or within other agencies.
  
• A desire to shrink government spending and reallocate funds toward more “visible” priorities like infrastructure, defense, or domestic production.
  
• A preference for decentralization and an increased reliance on private sector or nonprofit-driven innovation rather than federally funded research.
  
• A suggestion by some critics that evaluations have become too removed from real-world impact, or worse, have been used to justify unpopular policies.
  

As difficult as these changes may feel, they offer us a unique opportunity to recalibrate our role and reaffirm the value of evaluation in today’s shifting landscape.

What can evaluators do now?

• Evaluators can play a pivotal role in helping the new administration make informed decisions about workforce development, maternal health, border security, energy independence, and community-based public safety, etc. By identifying which programs are truly effective and delivering measurable outcomes, we can ensure federal investments are going where they matter most.
  
• Now is the time to strengthen methodologies, such as the Progressive Outcomes Scale Logic Model (POSLM), which capture real-time, qualitative improvements—evidence of how programs are actively changing lives. Evaluators can spotlight direct outcomes from services on the ground, moving beyond theoretical models to focus on what’s being implemented and what’s producing results.
  
• In a climate where public trust is fragile and budgets are scrutinized, evaluation is not just helpful—it’s essential. By surfacing which programs are working and which are not, evaluators can help the government increase accountability, reduce waste, and invest in initiatives that truly promote self-sufficiency among the people they serve.
  
• With shifts at the federal level, there’s growing demand at the state, municipal, and community levels for data that drives decisions. Evaluators can partner with local agencies, nonprofits, and foundations to build evidence for grassroots solutions that align with broader national goals.

Rad Resources

Rather than stepping back, now is the moment for evaluators to step up. Our skills are not obsolete—they’re urgently needed. If we reimagine our role, we can help shape a more effective, efficient, and equitable government. Let’s lead what comes next by showing what truly works.

Rad Resource 1: Washington Evaluators offers regular programming to help evaluators pivot in times of change—join us!

Rad Resource 2: Resource which explores use of the innovative Progressive Outcomes Scale Logic Model (POSLM) approach to help the local agencies, nonprofits, and foundations connect social welfare funding dollars to impactful outcomes.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Washington Evaluators (WE) Affiliate Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from WE Affiliate members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.