Hi, We’re Leah Josephson (she/her) and Lauren Beriont (she/her) with Emergence Collective, and Alex Bauer with a family foundation in Nebraska. This year our two teams collaborated to support some of the foundation’s grant partners in building evaluation capacity.
Hi there, my name is Amanda Kelley Corbin. I am an evaluation analyst at The Human Development Institute (HDI), Kentucky’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, University of Kentucky. We help to improve lifelong opportunities and services for individuals with disabilities, their families, and the community. Before becoming an evaluator, I received an MFA in fiction writing and I have a background in journalism.
Hello, we’re Goldie MacDonald and Anita McLees from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2020, CDC scientists and communication specialists prepared principles and preferred terms for non-stigmatizing, bias-free language to guide employees engaged in COVID-19 response activities. At the time, we were both deployed to this response and read the document in earnest. While others have known this for some time, we learned that stakeholder can have “a violent connotation for tribes and urban Indian organizations.” As we looked at the term more closely, we saw that others have questioned its origins and use. For example, in 9 Terms to Avoid in Communications with Indigenous Peoples, authors in British Columbia, Canada explained that “Indigenous Peoples are rights and title holders not stakeholders so avoid this term at all costs.” In Banishing “Stakeholders”, Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and former Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, discussed the term as having a “mercenary connotation.” It was used to refer to someone who “held the money of bettors while the game was on.” He explained that this meaning likely evolved to current understandings of the term that include individuals or groups with a concern or interest (e.g., financial) in an endeavor, organization, program, etc. In the same article, he cautioned that the catchall phrase “obscures the landscape in question, much like a dense fog.”
Hi, this is Dr Awab. Currently, I am working in the M&E section of one of the UN agencies in Islamabad, Pakistan.
I’m Gene Shackman, applied sociologist, and director of the Global Social Change Research Project. I’m very interested in analyzing data on the web, but commercial programs like SPSS can be expensive. As such, I’ve spent a lot of time looking for statistical programs that are free (and easy) to use. I found a bunch over the years, and I’d like to share them with you.
There is an opportunity to further ensure public policies include evaluative thinking and practice. Should we take advantage of it? We—Courtney Bolinson and John Sherman, independent evaluators, Social Impact TIG chair and steering group member—firmly, say “yes.” The opportunity: The federal Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rules to require publicly-traded companies (think about companies in …
Hi, we are Ben Fowler and Erin Markel, CEO and Chief Growth Officer respectively at MarketShare Associates (MSA), a global social impact consulting company. There is growing recognition of the private sector’s enormous potential to create (as well as to threaten) social impact. However, a range of issues have traditionally challenged the ability of those …
Hi everyone! I’m Laura Budzyna, and I’m an independent consultant focused on impact measurement and management. Last year, Karim Harji , Penny Hawkins, Heather Hachigian and I set out to create a guide that would help social ventures (also referred to as social enterprises) choose the right impact measurement and management (IMM) approach for their …
SIM TIG Week: Ventures at the Helm by Laura Budzyna Read More »
Hi. I’m Daniel Brandão, an evaluator who has recently joined Vox Capital – a Brazilian impact investing asset manager with a strong background on Venture Capital to early-stage startups – as Impact Director. My current challenge is to bring my evaluation expertise based on grant transactions to investments oriented to delivering positive impact alongside a …
Hi! I am Kirsten Andersen, an economic sociologist who has been studying the impact investing market for the past five years. My lens on impact investing comes from my interest in understanding when and how financial and social values are incorporated. Charitable foundations are particularly interesting impact investors, because– unlike institutional investors– they have always …
