Grant facilities should ensure that a database of grant documentation and contact information exists in a form that is navigable by an independent evaluator in order to facilitate evaluation. Evaluations of grants, particularly those that are ex-post, face additional hurdles in accessing data because there are so many different stakeholders across the grantees and the MCA is no longer available to facilitate. This challenge is exacerbated in retrospective evaluations, which generally occur after program closure, and where the evaluators haven’t previously formed contacts with program stakeholders. The evaluation team faced many difficulties in accessing electronic data for their desk review. A large part of the evaluation depended on these records and due to the decentralized nature of the grant facility, it took a lot of time and effort to access to some of these materials. It was later realized that some of the information was inconsistent, files were missing, and data was incomplete. This limitation prevented the evaluation from diving deeper into understanding timelines and processes. In addition, given that MCA was closed, it was hard to get meetings with staff members and grantees. To prevent this challenge in the future, MCC and MCA should require that grant facilities not only create a database to maintain records/documents and contacts but actually use it and make sure that it is available to be accessed after the end of the compact, and after the MCA web site shuts down.
Lesson Learned