How to Find an Evaluator for Your SAMHSA Grant

Last reviewed: September 2026

Award status: SAMHSA announced two rounds of awards in a single week: $77 million across ten programs on August 31, 2026, including the Strategic Prevention Framework Partnerships for Success, Building Communities of Recovery, SBIRT, the pregnant and postpartum women treatment pilot, community mental health programs including the National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative, 988 crisis center follow-up, and adult suicide prevention, and more than $383 million on September 8, 2026, with $252 million supporting the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, suicide prevention, and mobile crisis services. If your organization received one of these awards and your application named an external evaluator still to be selected, this guide is for you.

You get the award letter. Then one line in your own application comes due: the evaluation section. Most SAMHSA applications promise an external evaluator, often written as a role to be filled after funding. That role now has to become a person. This guide shows how to find an evaluator for a SAMHSA grant. It covers what that person needs to know, where to look, how to vet candidates, how quickly to move, and what the work should cost.

To find an evaluator for a SAMHSA grant, look for four things: experience with your program type, working fluency in SAMHSA’s current reporting requirements, including the SUPRT tools and SPARS, capacity to start within weeks rather than months, and a scope of work that matches the evaluation section and budget in your funded application. Candidates come from referrals through grant writers and peer grantees, professional directories such as the American Evaluation Association’s find-an-evaluator listing, and direct search. The vetting conversation matters more than where you found the name.

I’m Dr. James Pann, principal consultant at EvalNetwork. For more than 25 years, I have served as the external evaluator on SAMHSA-funded and other federally funded behavioral health, justice system, and youth development programs. Many of those engagements began exactly where you are now: just after the notice of award.

Why you need this person in weeks, not months

Two clocks start with the award. The first is performance reporting. Effective October 1, 2025, SAMHSA replaced the old CSAT GPRA and CMHS NOMs tools with the SAMHSA Unified Performance Reporting Tools (SUPRT). SUPRT-A is a brief administrative questionnaire staff complete from client records. SUPRT-C is a questionnaire the client or caregiver completes directly. Both go into SPARS. The timing rules are specific. Complete the baseline assessment within 30 days of a client’s first service, and enter it into SPARS within 30 days of completion. Reassessments fall due at 90 or 180 days depending on the program. Annual assessments come due at each 12-month anniversary of the baseline. Closeout is due within 30 days of service discontinuation. If a program serves its first client in month two, it is collecting federal performance data by month three. Build the data collection design before that first client walks in.

The second clock is the evaluation plan itself. Reviewers scored the evaluation section of your application. After the award, that section is a commitment. Finalize the logic model against the funded budget. Select instruments. Build a data collection calendar around the SUPRT timepoints so clients are not assessed twice for the same information. Set an analysis and reporting cycle that feeds both SAMHSA’s progress reports and your own program decisions. Bring an evaluator in during the first month and they shape all of this once, cleanly. Bring one in during month six and they inherit whatever happened without one.

One boundary worth knowing: the client-level SUPRT tools apply to CMHS and CSAT discretionary services grants. Prevention grantees, including the Strategic Prevention Framework programs funded in the August awards, follow the performance reporting requirements in their own notices of funding opportunity. Your notice of award and program officer are the authorities on which requirements apply. A qualified evaluator will ask to see both before proposing a scope.

What a SAMHSA evaluator needs to know

Not every program evaluator fits a SAMHSA grant. The reporting environment is specific. Use the questions below to separate candidates quickly. Ask whether they have set up SUPRT or SPARS reporting for a grantee, and listen for current terminology: an evaluator who describes the client-level reporting as “GPRA” has not done this work since the tools changed. Ask which programs like yours they have evaluated. A school mental health program, a recovery community organization, and a crisis line have different measures, populations, and data realities. Ask how they would integrate the required performance reporting with the evaluation plan in your application. The wrong answer treats them as two separate projects billed twice. Ask about capacity directly: who does the work, and when can they start.

One more question worth asking: whether the evaluator has clinical training. SAMHSA programs serve clinical populations, and an evaluator who is also a licensed clinician, such as a licensed psychologist, evaluates them with advantages a methods background alone does not provide: familiarity with the standardized instruments used in behavioral health, judgment about which measures fit a population, care with sensitive client data, and credibility with the clinical staff whose cooperation data collection depends on. It is not a requirement. It is a difference you will notice in the conversation.

For interview questions and a scoring rubric that apply to any evaluator, see our guide to choosing a program evaluator.

Where grantees actually find evaluators

Start with referrals. Behavioral health grant writers keep evaluator relationships, and the writer who helped with your application is often the fastest path to a short list. Ask peer grantees in your program or state who they use. Ask who they would not use again. The American Evaluation Association maintains a searchable directory of evaluators. Many grantees also describe their award and requirements to a search engine or an AI assistant and ask who can help. That surfaces evaluators who publish substantively about SAMHSA evaluation. Whatever the source, have a conversation before you sign a contract. The questions in the previous section fit in a 30-minute call.

What a SAMHSA evaluator should cost

SAMHSA NOFOs typically allow grantees to spend up to 20 percent of the award on data collection and performance assessment, which includes evaluation. A defensible external evaluation on a SAMHSA services grant typically runs 8 to 12 percent of the award. That figure covers design, instruments, data collection support, analysis, and reporting. The gap between those figures leaves room for your own staff time and data systems. Your funded budget already contains an evaluation line. A good evaluator scopes to that line rather than around it. Our SAMHSA grant evaluation page covers scoping in more detail.

Frequently Asked Questions About Finding a SAMHSA Evaluator

How do I find an evaluator for a SAMHSA grant?

Use referrals from your grant writer and peer grantees, the American Evaluation Association’s evaluator directory, and a direct search. Then check four criteria: experience with your program type, working fluency in SAMHSA’s SUPRT reporting tools and SPARS, capacity to start within weeks, and a proposed scope that matches the evaluation section and budget in your funded application.

What should a SAMHSA evaluator know?

A qualified SAMHSA evaluator knows the current reporting requirements. That includes the SUPRT tools that replaced the GPRA and NOMs tools on October 1, 2025, and SPARS as the submission system. They should also know your program area. They integrate required performance reporting with the evaluation plan instead of running two separate projects, and they ask to see your notice of award before proposing a scope. For programs serving clinical populations, clinical training, such as licensure as a psychologist, is a meaningful advantage.

How quickly do we need an evaluator after a SAMHSA award?

Within the first weeks. SUPRT baseline data collection begins within 30 days of a client’s first service. Put the data collection design, staff training, and SPARS registration in place before services begin. If you bring an evaluator in during month one, they can shape the logic model, instruments, and data calendar once. Wait months and you rebuild whatever accumulated without one.

How much does a SAMHSA evaluator cost?

Plan on 8 to 12 percent of the award for a defensible external evaluation on a SAMHSA services grant. That figure covers design, instruments, data collection support, analysis, and reporting. SAMHSA NOFOs typically allow up to 20 percent of the award for data collection and performance assessment overall. The difference leaves room for internal staff time and data systems alongside the evaluator.

Can we do the evaluation internally instead of hiring an evaluator?

On small awards with simple designs and one person who clearly owns it, an internal evaluation can work. Most funded applications still name an external evaluator. Reviewers scored the evaluation section with one in mind, and independence, design expertise, and dedicated capacity are hard to staff internally. If your application promised an external evaluator, delivering the grant as written means engaging one.

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