Development and Pilot Test of the RAND Program Evaluation Toolkit for Countering Violent Extremism
This RAND report introduces the Program Evaluation Toolkit for Countering Violent Extremism, designed to help community-based CVE programs overcome the practical barriers that have left the field with little rigorous evidence about what actually works. The toolkit was built from a literature review, a taxonomy of CVE program types, activities, and target audiences, and interviews with program managers about real-world data collection practices and evaluation challenges, then refined through a pilot test with a subset of those managers. The goal is to give program staff and funders user-friendly checklists, worksheets, and templates that let them choose the most rigorous evaluation approach their program can actually sustain—producing the accurate picture of program impact needed to make informed decisions about whether to improve, scale, or discontinue activities, and ultimately to reduce the risk of violent extremism in the communities these programs serve.