Sites seeking to work with external partners to conduct an evaluation will likely find the necessary expertise right at their own host institution. Most colleges and universities will have faculty with knowledge of research and evaluation design. Most regions also have consultants used to working with organizations in strategic planning and evaluation, and these consultants can be very beneficial. If you are looking for such consultants, local United Ways and other intermediary organizations for non-profits are good places to go for referrals.

Evaluators are also likely to be members of various research associations like AERA and professional associations like theAmerican Evaluation Association (AEA) . AEA can be a source of referrals too and maintains a code of standards and collects information on and about evaluation for both members and the public.

There are also discussions of standards or quality in evaluation maintained by various bodies. One set of standards come from a meeting of sixteen professional associations concerned with evaluation in 1995. Their recommendations are capturedin an ERIC Clearinghouse document. An important companion document is a report from AEA's diversity committee that took a read of the standards with a lens on Culture. That report is available here as a downloadable PDF.

Finally, sites can find a comprehensive set of issues and guidelines in the statement of the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation - Program Evaluation Standards 2