1046 - The work starts with us: Shifting and sustaining our daily evaluation practices to be more equitable, transformative, and full of soul

Abstract Information: How often have you downloaded a checklist but never used it, or had a light bulb moment from a blog post but struggled to put it into practice? The field of evaluation is undergoing important shifts as it examines equity within the practice and its role in the social change ecosystem. These shifts are being guided by numerous approaches and methods (e.g., Equitable Evaluation Framework, Trust-Based Philanthropy, Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation, Data Equity Framework) that challenge evaluators to examine WHAT aspects of traditional research and evaluation practice need to change to be more culturally responsive and in better service of equity. Even when we know WHAT to do, many evaluators face challenges in figuring out HOW to put it into practice. Perhaps we’ve made equity an explicit value or we’ve cited an equity-centered framework in our project scope or evaluation design. Perhaps we’ve even recognized that uplifting diverse perspectives within our organizations and our communities is an essential piece of that puzzle. How are we actually doing that in practice? How are we sustaining that over time? During this highly interactive workshop, we will focus on the how. Specifically, we will work together to answer the question: How can our daily actions be in better service of more equitable, transformative relationships with 1) communities and people most impacted by the work, 2) clients and primary evaluation users, and 3) our own evaluation teams? In the first half of the workshop, participants will engage in self-reflection to examine their personal equitable evaluation practices and how those practices shape relationships within their teams, organizations, and/or with collaborators or clients. Participants will continue to reflect, share, and identify new ideas for practice through small group discussions. In the second half of the workshop, participants will learn how to move from reflection to action through real-world examples. The facilitators will share case studies and examples from our team on how we’ve used equity-centered tools to transform the way we work with each other and ultimately the way we make a difference for our clients and the communities they serve. This workshop is grounded in foundational principles of data equity and draws inspiration from transformative evaluation, culturally responsive and equitable evaluation approaches, arts-based methods, and appreciative inquiry. Participants will leave this workshop newly inspired and equipped with tools and tangible skills on how to incorporate and sustain these approaches within their evaluation practice.

Relevance Statement: As evidenced by the growing number of frameworks, tools, and attention to questions of equity and ethics, the field of evaluation is reaching a consensus that this is where our field needs to go. Uplifting voices and centering the experiences of those who have historically (and continue to go) un(der)recognized and unheard is a step towards shifting power and achieving greater equity within our evaluation ecosystem. Numerous frameworks have already inspired shifts in our thinking and spurred new conversations. For example:
- Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation (CREE) has changed the conversation on how we consider, integrate and respond to culture and context within our evaluation teams and within our communities.
- The Equitable Evaluation Initiative’s Equitable Evaluation Framework has given us new language around mindsets, tensions, and sticking points that regularly emerge for individuals and organizations working to advance equity.
- Trust-Based Philanthropy has articulated best practices for centering relationships and shifting power to advance equity within grant-making.
- WeAllCount’s Data Equity Framework has uplifted tools for recognizing and examining the choices we make throughout data projects and for shifting those choices to more aligned with our goals around equity.

Maybe - even hopefully - we’ve already seen from our work as practitioners how the adoption of these frameworks has elevated diverse community voices, shifted power dynamics, and mobilized resources for historically under-invested communities. While it’s hard, this work starts with us. It takes time and consistency to regularly examine not just what we’re doing in practice, but how we’re doing it. This has implications beyond us as individual evaluators - it impacts the teams we build, the collaborations we create or sustain with clients or partners, and the communities we support or partner with. Our team includes new and emerging evaluators and seasoned evaluation consultants. We hold different identities, come from different educational backgrounds, and contribute different lived experiences. We draw inspiration from different evaluation approaches and frameworks; beyond evaluation, we are inspired by art and performance, the natural world, systems change, and design thinking. As our team has grown these past three years, we’ve explored the frameworks above through our individual practice, our team’s reflective practice, and our project work with non-profit and grant-making clients. We’ve even developed a Data Equity Deck - a tool we continue to use in our own practice and have shared with fellow evaluators - to inspire ongoing reflection and curiosity for applying equity-centered approaches to evaluation. What’s missing from the articles that we download and never read, or the checklists that we bookmark and never use, is the often the opportunity to test out tools in a low-risk setting and apply them to our own context. By sharing how we put our tools into everyday practice, we aim to support fellow evaluators in building the muscle of using and sustaining more equitable evaluation practices.