What do institutional leaders and accreditors each want to know about a program?
Institutional leaders and accreditors each want to know something different about a program, even when they're looking at the same results. Leaders such as a provost, dean, or vice president are often deciding whether the program supports the institution's strategic priorities, whether it's worth the resources it uses, and whether to sustain it once the grant ends. Accreditors are concerned with the institution as a whole. Federal rules require recognized accrediting agencies to set clear expectations for student achievement in relation to the institution's mission. Those expectations may include measures such as course completion, job placement, and state licensing exams. Each accreditor builds its own standards on that baseline.
What each audience is typically asking
| Audience | The question they're usually asking | Evidence that tends to answer it |
|---|
| Institutional leadership | Does this program support our priorities, and should we sustain it? | Enrollment, retention, completion, cost, and how the program connects to institutional goals |
| Accreditors | How well are students achieving, and what is the evidence? | Student outcomes in relation to the institution's mission, and how the results have been used |
| The funder | Is the project making progress toward the objectives in the award? | The evaluation findings and indicators the award and its reporting requirements call for |
These are general patterns, and your own leadership's priorities and your accreditor's standards set the specifics. What the funder's annual report requires is a separate question, covered in What does my funder's annual report actually need from the evaluation?
What can we reuse across reports, and what has to be rebuilt each time?
What you can reuse across reports is the evidence itself. That includes the data, the definitions behind each number, the description of the program and how it was evaluated, and the findings about what's working and what isn't. What has to be rebuilt each time is the framing: which results lead, how much detail the audience needs, what period the report covers, and what format the audience expects.
Timeframes are often where the differences appear. A grant report may cover the award year, a dashboard for leadership may follow the academic year or the fiscal year, and an accreditation narrative may look back across several years. The same data can serve all three. Each report just has to state which period it covers, so a reader comparing two reports can see why a number differs.
How do we keep the numbers consistent when each report frames them differently?
To keep the numbers consistent when each report frames them differently, agree on one set of definitions and one source for each key number before any report is written. Decide what counts as enrolled, retained, and completed. Decide which group of students or participants each number describes, and on which date the count is taken. Then use those definitions in every report, and write them down where the whole project team can find them.
Your institutional research office often keeps the official figures for enrollment, retention, and completion. Confirm early whether the program's numbers will come from that office, from the program's own records, or from the evaluation. When two reports have to show different numbers, for example because one covers a single term and the other a full year, say so in both. Whether the institutional research office could also conduct the evaluation is a different question, which Can our internal institutional researcher do the evaluation to save money? addresses.
How can the evaluation be designed to serve leadership, accreditors, and the funder from the start?
The evaluation can be designed to serve leadership, accreditors, and the funder from the start if the evaluator knows early what the institution will need. During proposal development or at the start of the award, tell your evaluator what decisions the institution will make about the program and which reports the evaluation will need to support. With that, the evaluator can design evaluation questions, data collection, and a timeline that meet the funder's requirements and also produce the evidence your leaders and accreditation reviewers will ask for. That planning also means scheduling data collection around the academic calendar, so focus groups and surveys don't fall during finals week.
When an evaluation is designed this way, most of what each report needs is produced as the work goes along. What can an evaluator actually do for me before I submit the proposal? describes that early design work, and We've received notice that our project was funded. When do I need to get my evaluator involved? covers the timing once the award arrives.
The Grantibly perspective
Lauren's perspective
As sociologists and former and current faculty members, we understand both sides of evaluation. But we also understand what it's like to be the faculty member, project director, or center leader responsible for actually doing the work. Our clients are often running ambitious programs while teaching, managing staff, serving students, meeting grant requirements, and working with partners.
Evaluation may be required by a funder, but compliance should never be its only purpose. Good evaluation can help an institution tell the story of its work with evidence. That matters when communicating with funders, institutional leaders, boards, community partners, policymakers, participants, and potential collaborators. Evaluation should help people do that work better, not simply give them another requirement to manage.
