Compass Consulting Group

Compass Consulting Group is a woman-owned and operated limited liability company located in Durham, NC. Compass partners began their evaluation careers as early as 1996 at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNC-G). Three years later, the team helped form an evaluation unit located in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH).

In 2001, partners established Compass Consulting Group, an evaluation consulting firm dedicated to working jointly with organizations to meet the challenges of developing and sustaining successful programs.

The primary functions of Compass are to:

• Conduct evaluations and provide training and technical assistance to build the evaluation capacity of community, educational, and service organizations.
• Facilitate organizations' application of both quantitative and qualitative evaluation information to improve programs, demonstrate program effectiveness, and inform decision making at all levels.
• Work with organizations to meet the challenges of developing and sustaining successful programs.

Compass' Evaluation Philosophy

Compass grounds its practices in building the evaluation capacity and effectiveness of private, public, and nonprofit organizations using a collaborative approach. Collaborative evaluation engages key program stakeholders throughout the evaluative process and promotes expanding the evaluation expertise of program staff. Actively involving program stakeholders’ helps ensure the evaluation produces information that is useful for improving programs, informing decisions about future programming, and demonstrating program effectiveness. To that end, Compass prides itself on being responsive by encouraging clients to call with any questions or concerns and by scheduling frequent in-person and/or conference call meetings.

Compass acknowledges and subscribes to the best practices advocated by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation of Personnel, Programs, and Students which are broadly stated as:

• Utility Standards: intended to ensure that an evaluation will serve the information needs of intended users;
• Feasibility Standards: intended to ensure that an evaluation will be realistic, prudent, diplomatic, and frugal;
• Propriety Standards: intended to ensure that an evaluation will be conducted legally, ethically, and with due regard for the welfare of those involved in the evaluation, as well as those affected by its results; and
• Accuracy Standards: intended to ensure that an evaluation will reveal and convey technically accurate information about the features that determine worth or merit of the program being evaluated.