To be effective, HIV prevention programs should be planned in partnership with affected communities and should be built on a solid scientific foundation. In 1994, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its prevention partners implemented HIV prevention community planning to achieve primarily these two objectives. In order to manage the community planning process effectively, extensive evaluation activities were employed at both the grantee and national level. This paper describes the first year evaluation goals and methods in detail. Throughout, reasons for collecting specific types of information and for using particular methodologies are highlighted.