Evaluating programs, practices, and interventions can help determine what is working well, what can be improved, and what the impact is on the communities served. Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) often participate in the programs being evaluated, but they are largely excluded from being actively involved in the evaluation process as partners or as members of the evaluation team.

Meanwhile, many of the institutions that fund or conduct program evaluations are predominantly white and often employ mainstream evaluation approaches, perspectives, and methods, which can perpetuate the racial biases and unequal power dynamics that exist in U.S. society.

This guide was developed to help evaluation teams increase their awareness of racism in evaluation and to help teams employ strategies to conduct anti-racist evaluations. While this guide specifically addresses anti-racist evaluation, the content is also informed by literature on culturally responsive and equitable research and evaluation, including Reflections on Applying Principles of Equitable Evaluation from the Justice and Prevention Research Center at WestEd.

This guide’s overarching themes include engaging in anti-racist self-reflection and learning; forming collaborative and equitable partnerships; and considering cultural, historical, and political contexts.

The Anti-Racist Evaluation Strategies Guide is organized into five evaluation stages:

  1. Preparing for the evaluation
  2. Designing the evaluation
  3. Gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data
  4. Planning and developing products
  5. Disseminating the findings

For each of these stages, the guide presents specific anti-racist strategies for evaluation teams to use, along with questions that can guide them in employing these strategies.

Acknowledgements: The WestEd team members who developed this guide are Kimkinyona Cully, Katie D’Silva, Lenay Dunn, Kylie Flynn, Tony Fong, Michelle Garcia, Ricky Herzog, Sylvia Kwon, Charlie Levin, Felisa Nobles, Rose Owens-West, Mary Rauner, Katie Salguero, Alexis Stern, and Jacquelyn Tran. The team is grateful to our WestEd colleagues Deb Benitez, Alicia Bowman, Becca Klarin, Susan Mundry, Anthony Petrosino, Jaclyn Tejwani, and Jenna Terrell, who strengthened the content of the guide through their careful review and helpful suggestions.

View our Research and Evaluation page for more information about our work.