Michael Quinn Patton, PhD, directs an organizational development and evaluation consulting business, Utilization-Focused Evaluation. He has been an evaluation practitioner for over 50 years and has worked at local, state, national, and international levels on a wide variety of initiatives. He has been teaching at The Evaluators’ Institute since its beginning. He holds an appointment as Professor of Practice in the Claremont Evaluation Center and Graduate University.
He is the author of eight evaluation books including a new 5th edition of Utilization-Focused Evaluation (2022) written with his daughter Charmagne Campbell-Patton. His book on Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods (4th edition 2015) has been used in over 500 universities worldwide. He is also author of Creative Evaluation; Practical Evaluation; and Culture and Evaluation. He has co-authored a book on the dynamics of social innovation with two Canadians drawing on complexity theory and systems thinking: Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed (2006). That led to his book on Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use (2011). His latest books are Developmental Evaluation Exemplars: Principles in Practice (2016), Principles-Focused Evaluation (2018), Facilitating Evaluation (2018), and Blue Marble Evaluation: Global Systems Transformations (2020). He has posted an extensive collection of presentations on his YouTube Channel.
He is former President of the American Evaluation Association. He received the Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award from the Evaluation Research Society for “outstanding contributions to evaluation use and practice” and the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award for lifetime contributions to evaluation theory from the American Evaluation Association. The Society for Applied Sociology honored him with the 2001 Lester F. Ward Award for Outstanding Contributions to Applied Sociology. He was the Gwen Iding Brogden Distinguished Lecturer at the 2008 National Conference on Systems of Care Research for Children’s Mental Health. EvalYouth named him recipient of its first Transformative Evaluator Award in 2021.
Patton is a generalist, having evaluated a wide variety of programs in areas as diverse as health, human services, education, cooperative extension, environment, agriculture, employment, training, leadership development, literacy, early childhood and parent education, poverty alleviation, economic development, and advocacy. He has consulted with nonprofit, philanthropic, private sector, and international organizations. His consulting practice has included program evaluation, strategic planning, conflict resolution, board facilitation, staff development, futuring, and a variety of organizational development approaches.