Intended Uses

Evaluations have many potential uses, such as improving programs, rendering judgments of merit and worth, generating lessons about effectiveness, assuring accountability, testing program theory, calculating costs and benefits, and building organizational capacity. No single evaluation will serve all these potential uses well. Establishing utilization priorities focuses an evaluation. The concept of intended uses moves from the general idea of doing a useful evaluation to a specific and concrete focus on the priorities of intended uses for a particular evaluation's primary intended users. The goal of the evaluation then becomes intended uses by intended users.