The second cohort of the Systems Change Community of Practice has been a place for foundation learning and evaluation leaders to work through some of the hardest questions in the field together. Our conversations have reinforced the importance of systems change while also raising questions about several assumptions that often shape how the work is understood and practiced. This blog shares are takeaways that may be useful to others working in or exploring systems change.

If you work in philanthropic E&L, you may have felt the shifts in federal funding, threats to data infrastructure, and other changes to your work over the past year. But how are these changes affecting the field as a whole?

Last fall, we partnered with ORS Impact on a survey of nearly 200 foundation E&L staff and consultants to find out. We learned that experiences were more varied than expected, with foundation staff reporting relative stability, consultants experiencing contractions in the market, and both groups wrestling with how to make the case for E&L's value right now.

In Fresno, like many places in the United States, Native American, Latino, and Black families face higher rates of maternal mortality, infant death, and pregnancy complications that can stem from dismissive treatment, cultural disconnection, and services built around assumptions that don’t reflect their lives. Since 2024, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation's Children and Families initiative has supported six Fresno-based organizations as they develop culturally responsive approaches to improving connections to maternal and child health and reducing disparities. This work relies on building deep trust and connection, work that often goes unrecognized by traditional funding structures.

As part of our Foundation Review article, Leaning into the Messiness of Authentic Engagement, in a special issue on “The Power of Listening to Communities,” we sought to unearth the core ingredients of authentic listening through a series of after-action interviews with foundation staff, consultants, and grantee leaders. Here, we share some key takeaways abut what makes engagement different and what we can learn from it.

We talk a lot about “authentic partnership” and “collaboration” in our field. But anyone who has worked on complex, multi-stakeholder projects knows that translating those values into everyday practice is easier said than done. During one of SECPI’s monthly Gathering Spaces for Strengthening Evaluation Partnerships, Carlisle Levine and Hippolyt Pul engaged Sonia Taddy-Sandino in conversation about using Before and After Action Reviews as a practical tool for making authentic partnerships more than just a good intention. This post captures that conversation.

In response to our field brief on how funders are navigating unprecedented challenges while preserving equity gains., two dozen evaluation practitioners from across the country came together to offer ways the field can work together to sustain and strengthen equity-centered evaluation. This blog post shares insights from those discussions, with ideas for how to build momentum and move the work forward.

Within the context of learning and evaluation, storytelling can be a powerful tool that gives participants a way to share their own narratives and highlight insights that other data collection methods might miss. We’ve been exploring why and how to harness the power of stories in participatory learning. We share both a framework for understanding participatory storytelling and practical guidance for applying this approach.

We’ve spent the past year exploring how generative AI can enhance our evaluation, strategy, and communications work with an approach that prioritizes both innovation and responsibility. Our biggest recommendation? Start with your values, not the technology. Ask hard questions about responsibility and ethics from the beginning, and build your approach from there.

We are in a period of profound change and challenge. The political landscape has shifted sharply. Equity work is being politicized. Nonprofits are facing mounting threats. And within philanthropy, questions are emerging about the role and value of learning and evaluation. The ground under this work feels less steady, and the stakes feel higher.

This post shares what we’re hearing, what we think it means, and how we hope to support others navigating this moment. We hope it offers a grounded reflection drawn from the field—one that is useful, honest, and timely.

As learning partners to arts and culture organizations and their funders, we have an opportunity and responsibility to consider how our choices today shape the democratic possibilities of tomorrow. We invite you to reflect with us: What does it look like to support the full spectrum of art’s influence in this moment? How might we understand and convey the deeper shifts that art helps bring about? And what role can we play in ensuring those contributions are seen, valued, and sustained?

The Expanding the Bench® celebration at AEA 2024, held in partnership with Engage R+D and Informing Change, highlighted the vital role of relationships in advancing culturally responsive and equitable evaluation (CREE). We share three insights from the session’s interactive activity that demonstrate why relationships and collaboration are at the heart of equitable approaches to evaluation and learning, and how we can continue working together to strengthen our field.

As funders consider the benefits of a participatory learning approach—such as cultivating trust with grantees; embracing a commitment to equity; and transforming data collection into strategic insight—they must also acknowledge the importance of compensating grantees and community members for time to contribute expertise and knowledge.

Organizational resources—along with learning culture and commitment to equity—are essential to adopting participatory learning practices. But challenges or tensions may arise when this buy-in from foundation leaders and colleagues is not apparent, or is tough to secure. In our new field resource, Fostering Participatory Learning Practices in Philanthropy: A Guide for the Curious, we identify common challenges, approaches, and strategies—drawn from interviews with numerous funders—that prevail in the infusion of participatory approaches. It is important to note that recognizing and managing these tensions can be a more realistic goal than resolving them.

As we emphasize in our new field resource, Fostering Participatory Learning Approaches in Philanthropy: A Guide for the Curious, funders and grantees stand at different stages in their journeys toward power-shifting and more inclusive practices. Participatory learning—which we define as the deliberate inclusion of grantees and community members in foundation-supported learning activities with the goal of sharing and shifting decision-making power to them—offers a pathway to more culturally responsive and equitable approaches.

As we celebrate our seventh anniversary in 2024, we’d like to take time to reflect on what we’ve learned. Many of the topics covered in these field resources—such as creating networks for social change, using knowledge to influence philanthropic practice and strategy, practicing equity-focused evaluation, and adapting grantmaking processes during times of crisis—continue to resonate with funders and evaluators. We look forward to resharing these field resources with you throughout the year and invite you to reflect with us on their continued applicability to our sector.

Many funders recognize the importance of relationships, from making connections between grantees to building a movement. But how do you learn from the work of relationship building? Network mapping, a tool that has been used in a range of fields, such as disease surveillance, the study of online social networks, and organizational development, can also be applied in the field of evaluation and learning.