Evaluation as reclamation, resource and repair
An Invitation: Evaluation as a Tool Towards Advancing Equity
I am proud to be an evaluation nerd, and I’m also very aware that evaluation doesn’t typically give “main character” energy.
At its core, evaluation is simply the practice of asking: what are we doing, is it working, and how do we know? But the way that question gets asked, and by whom, and for whom, matters enormously. Evaluation has historically been used as a tool of surveillance, compliance, and defunding, particularly against BIPOC-led organizations and communities. It has often treated numbers as truth while dismissing the lived experience, oral tradition, community wisdom, and Indigenous knowledge systems that hold just as much, if not more, insight. That history is real, and it is part of why reimagining evaluation is not just a methodological conversation. It is a conversation about reclamation, resources and repair.
Especially right now, in a moment where funding is being cut, and organizations and their communities face greater vulnerability than ever before, evaluation is often the first thing moved to the back burner. That is understandable; and I believe we may be leaving something important behind when we do.
Here is what I know to be true: evaluation, when given its proper time and space, is not a reporting obligation. It functions more like the backstage crew; the people who hold the logistics, track what’s working, and make it possible for the show to happen with ease and grace. When organizations invest in reflection and thoughtful documentation, they build clarity about who they are, confidence in the story they carry, and autonomy over how that story gets told.
That autonomy matters. Especially when we remember that evaluation should ultimately serve communities, not just the organizations working alongside them, and certainly not just the funders watching from a distance.
In my consulting practice, I tend to focus on:
Helping organizations reimagine evaluation as a tool for advancing equity and justice
Unlearning white supremacy culture in my own practice and supporting organizations to document story and data in more humanizing ways
Supporting meaningful learning from data, and challenging organizations to more authentically meet the needs of the communities they serve and are a part of
Incorporating somatics and liberatory practice into facilitation, to model what unlearning and shifting can actually look and feel like
My hope this year is to talk more openly about Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation (CREE). An approach that centers equity, honors multiple ways of knowing, and positions communities as the experts in their own experience. I want to explore what CREE makes possible and how it can support collaboration, transformation, and impact measurement that honors multiplicity and justice.
Introducing: A 6-Part Series
Evaluation as a Tool Towards Advancing Equity
This newsletter doesn’t just talk about evaluation, it tries to embody it. Rooted in reflective inquiry, each upcoming issue will model what culturally responsive and equitable evaluation can look and feel like. Whether or not you’ve ever set foot in an evaluation room,these conversations are for you, especially if you’re oriented toward justice and building something new.
You already bring expertise, wisdom, and ways of knowing that are just as valuable as any technical evaluation framework. This series is a mutual learning space, not an expert broadcasting to an audience. Each issue will open with a framing or foundation, share what I’m observing and noticing in my work and living, and invite you into your own reflection, modeling evaluation as the liberatory practice it can be.
Here’s what’s coming:
1. Process Evaluation as a Practice of Liberation
When we treat evaluation as a living process, not a reporting obligation, it becomes something transformative. This issue makes the case for thoughtful process evaluation as a space for genuine inquiry that honors complexity and positions organizations to adapt, learn, and thrive rather than simply comply.
2. Organizational Learning: Data That Works for You
Too much evaluation exists to satisfy funders and tell stories outward. But what about the organization itself? This issue champions a radical idea: your data belongs to you and it can fuel internal learning, strengthen impact, and drive a continuous improvement cycle that actually builds your capacity to do the work you care about.
3. Stop Burning Down Leaders of Color: Equity Work is Everyone’s Work
Black and Brown and Indigenous leaders, especially in lower-level and middle management, are doing the deep, relational, transformative equity work while their organizations watch, depend on them, and call it a job well done. This issue names that exploitation clearly and asks: how do we resource, protect, and share this labor? This one may become a two-part conversation because it deserves the full space.
4. Capacity is Not a Limitation, It’s a Starting Place
Evaluation should account for what your organization actually has: your resources, your season, the social-political moment you’re in, the needs in front of you, and the strengths already alive in your community. This issue reframes capacity not as a barrier, but as the honest, grounded foundation from which real strategy grows.
5. Language is Power: From Jargon to Liberation
The words we choose either open doors or lock them. This issue calls out the way professional jargon performs expertise while shutting people out and makes the case for language that invites multiplicity, honors lived experience, and calls people in to co-create the more liberative cultures we’re building together.
6. Beyond the Written Report: Closing with Meaning
The written report has long been crowned king, and it’s time to challenge that default. This issue lifts up presentation, internal reflection, and community meaning-making as not just alternatives, but as preferable ways to close a project, because real closure includes strategy, not just summary.
Reflection & Invitation
Which of these topics sparks the most curiosity or resonance for you — and why?
Your response helps shape how this series unfolds. You are not just a reader here — you are part of the inquiry.
