Nonprofits and Foundations Evaluation

Hi! We are Alissa Marchant and Shelli Golson-Mickens. Across the country, equity advocates are facing a chilling reality: the language and practices of diversity, equity, and inclusion are being politicized and even outright banned. Like many others, we’ve felt the worry, grief, and disorientation these shifts bring. But equity work isn’t disappearing—it’s adapting. In this moment, we’re seeing a surge of creativity, pragmatism, and values-based innovation from leaders who remain committed to justice.

Hello! My name is Muniba Ahmad, and I’m a Senior Consultant with ORS Impact – we specialize in systems change evaluation, learning, and strategy. I recently attended the Northern California Grantmakers’ annual conference themed “Becoming Our Vision.” The current upheaval in the social sector was front and center, with a strong call to action for

I am Juan Clavijo, Director at ORS Impact, an evaluation and strategy consulting firm. As thought partners to social innovators, we specialize in clarifying strategy, hypotheses, and assumptions, and evaluating progress in systems-level initiatives that are hard to assess. In recent years, we have evaluated a number of field-building efforts and have some lessons and

Hi everyone! I’m Anna Saltzman, an evaluation practitioner at Engage R+D. We help funders and nonprofits use learning as a tool for equity, strategy, and change. This spring, we commissioned a landscape scan and facilitated listening sessions with funders, field leaders, and our team to better understand how philanthropic learning and evaluation needs are evolving

Hi, we are Cecilia Borges Farfan and Alice Opalka, two senior consultants at ORS Impact. At our organization, we ground our work in shared values for equity and social justice. Recently, we’ve been wrestling with the question of what it means to end well. This question arose as a termination letter ended our work with

Hello, I am Isaac D. Castillo, and I lead the Learning and Evaluation team at KABOOM!. When you think about a playground, you probably just think of a place for kids to have fun. But playgrounds are more than that; they are critical community spaces that contribute to health, well-being, and social connection. However, local

We are June Han and Juan Clavijo, evaluators at ORS Impact and members of an AI workgroup focused on AI exploration, learning, integration, and governance. Part of our role has been to test different AI tools and facilitate organizational learning. This experience has prompted some lessons we want to share with the field. At ORS,

I’m Danielle Lemi, PhD, president and founder of C. Baxter, LLC, a justice-rooted research and strategy firm based in Texas. I help mission-driven teams build evaluation practices that center justice, respect staff, and protect their work. As nonprofits lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding and nonprofit teams are laid off, I’m thinking

Hello! I am Dr. Albertina Lopez, director at the Center for Evaluation Innovation where we partner with philanthropy on strategy, learning, and evaluation efforts that intend to further racial equity and social justice. Today I am discussing how to design foundation learning and evaluation (L&E) functions so that they are grounded in clear purpose and values.

Hi everyone! We are Eric Barela & Rhonda Williams, this year’s AEA Awards Working Group Co-chairs. I’m Eric and I’ve been a member of AEA since 2000. I’m based in Los Angeles and have served in a variety of TIG and Association roles throughout my tenure, most recently as Co-Chair of the Awards Task Force that revised the Awards Program in 2021-2022 and as last year’s Awards Working Group Co-Chair. I’m Rhonda and I have been a member of AEA since 2017. I am based in Dallas and have served in a variety of TIG leadership roles and this year’s Co-Chair alongside Eric.