Lesson 75 · The Grant Architect

75. Budgeting for Evaluation

30 min

By the end you'll be able to

  • Apply the 5 to 10 percent working rule of thumb for evaluation budgets.
  • Build an evaluation budget from the bottom up across all required line items.
  • Identify the line items most commonly forgotten.
  • Negotiate honestly when a funder caps evaluation below what the design requires.

Evaluation budgets are where ambitious plans meet financial reality. Most proposals underfund evaluation, which is why reviewers have learned to read the budget before they read the evaluation narrative. In this lesson you learn the working rule of thumb (5 to 10 percent of total project cost for most programs, higher for federal demonstration projects) and how to defend whatever number you land on.

You will build an evaluation budget from the bottom up, costing out instrument licensing, staff time for data collection, transcription, software, external evaluator fees, travel, and dissemination. You will see how a 5,000 to evaluation is signaling, intentionally or not, that evaluation will not actually happen. You will also learn how to negotiate when a funder caps evaluation at a number that cannot support the design they say they want, and how to scope the plan honestly rather than overpromise.

By the end you should be able to draft an evaluation budget that matches the methods proposed, defend the percentage to a finance officer or program officer, and identify the line items most often forgotten (instrument fees, IRB review costs, and participant incentives). A realistic evaluation budget is the clearest proof that the rest of the plan will hold up.

Common mistakes

These are the traps learners hit most often on this topic. Knowing them in advance is half the fix.

  • Building the evaluation budget last.

    When evaluation is sized to whatever is left after every other line item is set, the design and the budget tell different stories, and reviewers see the gap.

  • Treating evaluation as in-kind staff time only.

    Reporting evaluation as "absorbed by existing staff" with no cash allocation almost always means the work will not happen.

Practice problems

Try each on paper first. Click Show solution only after you've made a real attempt.

  1. Problem 1
    Draft an evaluation budget for a $250,000 project using mixed methods and a hybrid evaluator model.
    Show solution

    At 8 percent of 20,000. Allocate 4,000 for internal staff time on data collection, 2,500 for transcription and qualitative analysis software, 1,500 for IRB review and reporting, and $1,000 for dissemination products.

Practice quiz

  1. Question 1
    What is the working rule of thumb the lesson uses for evaluation budgets?
  2. Question 2
    Which line item is most commonly forgotten in evaluation budgets?
  3. Reflection 3
    In two sentences, explain how reviewers use the evaluation budget to read the rest of the plan.

Lesson 75 recap

A realistic evaluation budget is the proof that the rest of the plan will hold up, and it must be built from the bottom up against the methods proposed.

Coming next: Lesson 76 — Dissemination Planning

Next, we plan dissemination so the findings move beyond the final report and into the field.

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