Abstract: In the current political and economic climate, funding for public health programs and program technical assistance and support services, such as assistance interpreting evaluation data, are diminishing. In order for grantees to continue to perform at a level at which they can effectively compete for funding, their staff need to take on more of the technical skills required of programs, such as media planning, surveillance, evaluation, and quality and performance improvement. Building technical capacity among grantees therefore is vital to funders hoping for programs to be able weather these tough economic times and to continue to provide useful information for program improvement. In this session, one presentation illustrates the development of a collaborative partnership between CDC and grantees. The evaluation of performance improvement capacity building will be discussed in a second presentation, and a third presentation will discuss the development of a network in building evaluation capacity.#publichealth #2012Conference