"[2] Empowerment evaluation has been used in programs ranging from a fifteen million dollar Hewlett-Packard corporate philanthropy effort[3] to accreditation in higher education[4] and from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Mars Rover project[5] to battered women's shelters.
A sample of sponsors and clients includes Casey Family Programs, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Family & Children Services, Health Trust, Knight Foundation, Poynter, Stanford University, State of Arkansas, UNICEF and Volunteers of America.
It highlighted EE's scope, ranging from its use in a national educational reform movement to its endorsement by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s Director of Evaluation.
The book presented examples in various contexts, including: federal, state, and local government, HIV prevention and related health initiatives, African American communities and battered women’s shelters.
[13] It emphasized greater conceptual clarity by making explicit EE's underlying principles, ranging from improvement and inclusion to capacity building and social justice.
[15][16][17] Process use represents much of the rationale or logic underlying EE in practice, because it cultivates ownership by placing the approach in community and staff members’ hands.
The alignment of theories of use and action explain how empowerment evaluation helps people produce desired results.
[25] These principles help evaluators and community members align decisions with the larger purpose or goals associated with capacity building and self-determination.
[citation needed] GTO helps participants answer 10 questions using relevant literature, methods and tools.
[citation needed] Conventional and innovative evaluation tools monitor outcomes, including online surveys, focus groups and interviews, as well as the use of quasi-experimental designs.
For example, a minority tobacco prevention program in Arkansas established: These metrics help the community monitor implementation, by comparing performance with benchmarks.
Outcomes ranged from Native American's building one of the largest unlicensed wireless systems in the country to creating a high-resolution digital printing press.
Outcomes include improving test scores, upgrading school-level performance and preventing and reducing tobacco consumption.
[30] A school district in South Carolina invested millions of their own dollars to provide each student with a personalized computing device as an educational tool.
EE was used to support large scale implementation of the initiative and monitor outcomes associated with teacher and student behavior change.
Additional effort could be made to further distinguish empowerment from collaborative, participatory, stakeholder, and utilization forms of evaluation.
They also believe that greater effort is needed to further distinguish empowerment from other forms of stakeholder involved approaches.
[37][38] Chelimsky re-framed the discussion between Fetterman, Patton and Scriven, explaining that evaluations serve multiple purposes: (1) accountability; (2) development; and (3) knowledge.
The primary critiques focused on conceptual and methodological clarity: Cousins attempted to differentiate between similar approaches, e.g. collaborative, participatory, and empowerment evaluation.
They suggested that clients were selecting it for appropriate reasons, such as capacity building, self-determination, accountability, cultivating ownership and institutionalization of evaluations.
[43] He questioned the ability of EE to actually empower people and recommended a neutral evaluator role.
[44] Fetterman and Wandersman responded by attempting to enhance conceptual clarity, provide greater methodological specificity and highlight EEs commitment to accountability and outcomes.
They acknowledged and applauded Miller and Campbell's systematic review of EE projects, while noting neglected or omitted case examples and questioning some of their methodology.
They asserted that evaluations are inherently subjective and are shaped by culture and political context, and that EE is committed to honesty and rigor.
They highlighting specific project outcomes including: Scriven agreed that external evaluators sometimes miss problems obvious to program staff members.
[49] SAGE Publications, a social science textbook publisher, cited an empowerment evaluation book as one of their "classic titles in research methods".
[50] Four empowerment evaluators received honors from the association: Margret Dugan, David Fetterman, Shakeh Kaftarian, and Abraham Wandersman.