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AbstractThis chapter attempts to deepen the understanding of small sellers of evaluation services through a survey of the American Evaluation Association's Independent Consulting Topical Interest Group members, delving into the inner workings of their organizations. The chapter examines where boutique evaluators in the United States generate their revenues, how some have survived as independent evaluators for 10 or more years, how they differentiate themselves from their competition, whether they do subcontract work with large sellers, and how they deliver high‐quality evaluation services. A case example of one small seller, SPEC Associates, is used to elucidate the survey findings.

AbstractThis chapter discusses issues related to succession planning and the valuation and sale of service businesses, with a focus on selling an evaluation business.

AbstractBUilding Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD), an initiative of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provides grants to undergraduate institutions to implement and study innovative approaches to engaging and retaining students from diverse backgrounds in biomedical research. The NIH awarded BUILD grants to 10 higher education institutions in multiple states, including funding for local evaluations. This chapter presents findings from an online survey and interviews with 15 local evaluators from nine of the 10 BUILD sites. Participants shared their perspectives on the role of professional local evaluators in national evaluations, ideal national–local multisite evaluation partnerships, and the ways that funders can support these partnerships to maximize impact. They argued for customized technical assistance and other support for local evaluations; the importance of including local results in national evaluation findings; the value of local evaluators' subject‐matter expertise; and the potential for funders to act as central organizing entities in national–local evaluation partnerships.

Lumina became the first national private foundation to provide significant support to states interested in exploring how to increase productivity in higher educationdefined as graduating substantially more students within available financial resources while maintaining access and educational quality. Lumina supported this work in the midst of turbulent financial times, aware that higher education in the United States is an enormously complex enterprise, with different historical contexts, political structures, governance systems, and institutional configurations in each state. This report identifies early outcomes and implications of the work that seven states have done in higher education policy, by examining changes in policies and programs at the state and system levels between 2008 and 2013. ; Lumina Foundation ; Social Program Evaluators and Consultants, Inc. (SPEC Associates)