The MCC also maintains an active research and evaluation program. Participants in consensus processes are asked to rate their level of satisfaction with the processes in which they have participated. The MCC also produces biannual progress reports on the overall performance of the organization. There are benefits to having a public-private cooperative arrangement. With private funding, the MCC is less vulnerable to a decrease in funding from any one source.
Evaluation is crucial.
In fact, the MCC is important not merely for its participation in dispute resolution, but also for providing a historical framework for understanding how decisions are made, thus creating an institutional memory of experiments. It is often not as difficult for groups of stakeholders to reach agreement as it is for them to finalize the agreement. At this stage of the process, participants often threaten to back out or demand additional meetings. Part of this fear results from participants' increased understanding of the positions of other stakeholders. The participants, better than their constituents, understand other stakeholders' positions and are therefore willing to make agreements their own constituency would not.