The Recipe Approach to Cost-Inclusive Evaluation: Beyond Ingredients and Into Action! … Including Sustainability and Dissemination.

The Ingredients approach was a major innovation in evaluation of program costs in the 1970s. Dr. Henry Levin introduced it for education and advocated its use in program evaluation more generally. By asking program providers to list the types and amounts of resources used in the program, understanding of the program budget and inclusion of costs in evaluation were promoted. But findings from the Ingredients approach to cost-inclusive evaluation (CIE) do not suffice today for program replication and, if desired and warranted, program dissemination. What is missing entirely is how and when those ingredients—those many types of resources—are *used* by the program in its activities to create the changes in client individuals, families, or organizations to achieve the outcomes and have the impacts for which the program received funding. This presentation proposes, and illustrates with examples from several CIEs a more contemporary and complete RECIPE approach to CIE.
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