Table 2.

Theories of Empowerment Evaluation

Principle	Description
Empowerment	Helping individuals develop skills and abilities to help them gain control, obtain needed resources, and understand one’s environment so that they can become independent problem solvers and decision making.
Self-Determination	Helping program staff members and participants implement an evaluation, and thus chart their own course. This includes them being able to:  1. Identify needs  2. Establish goals  3. Create action plan  4. Identify resources  5. Make rationale choices  6. Pursue objectives  7. Evaluate results  8. Reassess based on findings  9. Continue to pursue foals
Capacity Building	Improving an organization’s ability to conduct an evaluation by fostering stakeholder motivation, skill, and knowledge.
Process Use	The more engaged individuals are in conducting their own evaluation, the more likely they are to find the results credible and act on any resulting recommendations.
Action and Use	In order to rigorously evaluate a program, stakeholder must close the gap between what interventions are supposed to do and what they are actually doing.