The Center for Program Evaluation and Research (CPER) is a newly formed 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in San Antonio committed to delivering high-quality evaluation services and fostering evaluative thinking to help organizations measure, communicate, and strengthen impact across communities. CPER is the product of converging private and public initiatives over the last ten years. As a private evaluation firm, Steuck & Associates, LLC (S&A LLC) was a team of professional evaluators conducting external evaluations on a range of projects, predominantly for STEM-related grants within postsecondary institutions.
S&A LLC’s founder, Dr. Kurt Steuck, simultaneously led community-facing efforts to expand the community of evaluative thinkers in San Antonio through two grassroots efforts. Dr. Steuck launched the LinkedIn group, Alamo City Evaluators (ACE), as a way to connect local evaluators and provide opportunities for sharing ideas, best practices, and advice. The next evolution of the initiative to coordinate and build community among local evaluators became the San Antonio Evaluator Pipeline (SAEP), whose mission focused on collective knowledge and resources, collaboration, and growing awareness of evaluation as a career field.
Merging S&A LLC’s business portfolio with the ecosystem-strengthening emphasis of SAEP led to the formal launch of CPER and the sunsetting of the paths that led to it. CPER now operates as the primary entity driven by a comprehensive mission to foster evaluative thinking and provide evaluation services to help organizations in the south Texas region strengthen their impact.
