1 The Board’s Role in Program Evaluation Capacity for Nonprofit Human Service Organizations

The increasing call for accountability combined with increasing competition for resources has given program evaluation more importance, prominence and attention within the United States nonprofit sector. As a result, some scholars indicate that the demand for program evaluation is growing (Carman, 2007; Fitzpatrick, Sanders & Worthen, 2004; Hudson, 2005; Newcomer, Hatry & Wholey; 2004). Nonprofit organizations face the challenge of responding to the external pull from funders, government agencies and accrediting bodies while developing an intrinsically motivated internal push to build long-term capacity to evaluate their programs. Evaluation’s presence in the nonprofit management literature has grown in the last decad