The project for the reform of the administration of the Brazilian state highlighted the question of evaluation within public organizations. This study systematized the process of elaboration of a methodological proposal to evaluate the management capacity of non-state owned, public social organizations created within the framework of the reform. The objective was to define a conceptual guide for management and to define its dimensions. A selected set of variables, indicators and parameters was constructed, as well as a means of verification and the data necessary to feed the information processing system. The proposal presents a plan for analyzing the results. In the final comments, the authors argue that the conceptual choices and procedural decisions aim to produce a design of evaluation that should guarantee the reliability and sensitivity of results in their proximity to the phenomenon being evaluated, the applicability of the instrument and its reproducibility in different contexts.