Equitable Evaluation Webinar
Join us for this exciting opportunity to advance your knowledge of equity in evaluation practice!
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Meeting ID: 307 155 926
Whether implicit or explicit, social justice and human rights are part of the mission of many social and philanthropic sector organizations. Evaluation produced, consumed or used by either sector that doesn’t pay attention to the imperatives of cultural competency nor integrates an equity lens may be inconsistent with their missions. Led by Jara Dean-Coffey, principal and founder of Luminare Group, this webinar introduces Equitable Evaluation (EE) which holds an emerging set of principles as core:
1. Evaluation and evaluative work should be in service of equity.
- Production, consumption, and management of evaluation and evaluative work should hold at its core a responsibility to advance progress towards equity.
2. Evaluative work can and should answer critical questions about:
- Ways in which historical and structural decisions have contributed to the condition to be addressed
- Effect of a strategy on different populations
- Effect of a strategy on the underlying systemic drivers of inequity
- Ways in which cultural context is tangled up in both the structural conditions and the change initiative itself
3. Evaluative work should be designed and implemented commensurate with the values underlying equity work:
- Multi-culturally valid
- Oriented toward participant ownership.
EE asks us to challenge our notions of objectivity, rigor and validity which often are code for biases that privilege particular ways of seeing and being in the world. It is informed by research within philanthropy about equity and evaluation which revealed:
- Few foundations have thought thoroughly about how to evaluate their equity work nor how their evaluation reflects principles of equity.
- There are promising examples of thoughtful evaluative work and tools that aim to support equity.
- The field is in need of a paradigm shift that challenges underlying assumptions about traditional evaluation approaches.
- People in the field doing equity work have a desire to learn more about evaluation and to share their ideas and approaches collaboratively.
- There is a growing segment of evaluation staff in foundations who are looking for “another way” to engage in evaluative practice in their foundations and with their community partners/grantees.
Originally a one year project, Equitable Evaluation is now a multi-year initiative designed to advance the adoption of EE within philanthropy. The Colorado Trust and The Colorado Health Foundation are early champions of EE who are bringing this conversation to Colorado evaluators. Although the initial work around Equitable Evaluation has been in the field of philanthropy, the issues and concepts apply to all evaluators.
We invite all evaluators to join us to explore the concept of Equitable Evaluation and to spur your thinking about how this could apply to your evaluation practice!
Also - this webinar will serve as a launching pad for two in-person design labs that will be held later in the year, where evaluation practitioners will identify opportunities to change or adopt practices which advance EE. Tools, ideas and lessons will be shared with others with the hopes that they will join us in this journey. The design labs will require separate registration and have limited openings. Further information about the labs will be forthcoming - but note that they are designed for advanced practitioners who have the will and ability to make changes to the way their organizations engage in evaluation. If you're interested in the labs, we encourage you to attend the webinar.
Jara is the brains and heart behind Equitable Evaluation. She and the EE Team ask us to imagine what might be possible if we collectively conceptualized, implemented and utilized evaluation in a manner that is consistent with and promotes equity. Jara is an Advisor to the Center for Evaluation Innovation and Philamplify, is a member of the Steering Committee of National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers, on the planning group for the 2018 Evidence and Equity Symposium led by Center for the Study of Social Policy. Additionally, Jara began her first term as an American Evaluation Association Board Member in 2018.
