LGBT+ TIG Week: A Roadmap to Equitable Decision Making by Lauren Dixon 

Greetings! My name is Lauren Dixon (they/them) with Centerstone’s Research Institute. As a queer in the Southern United States, I am developing my evaluative practice in a juxtaposition of old and new. My unsolicited advice to fellow emerging evaluators is to go beyond conventions of what we are told; to reimagine what this role can be and do; and to engage in a continual process of un-learning and reflection.  

My team and I are learning how to navigate politicization and data violence. While AEA’s guiding principles have changed, translation to practice remains unclear. When faced with incongruence, we felt unsure which comes first: addressing equity and marginalization, or respecting the culture or preferences of the funders. These decisions, like change, are necessities. We All Count warns that “when faced with decisions, we can inadvertently make the wrong ones if we are not intentional about our project’s goals and our team’s motivations.”  

Today I will share my team’s first steps integrating Equitable and LGBTQ+ approaches to our evaluation practice. These steps included reclaiming our team’s diverse experiences and identities, reflective practice, and creating a shared mission that will guide future decisions.  

Without a shared vision or equity statement, our leader did not have firm ground to make a stance. So, we met as a team to discuss and map out Motivation Touchstones.  We reflected upon questions such as “What motivates me to do this work?”, “What impact am I wanting to make?” and “What is our team’s shared goal and vision?” as well as: “What are our limitations?”  

Next, we needed to know our sphere of influence to map where our decision making power was. So, we met again to create a Funding Web. A funding web is a visual representation of the transactions of funding, data, and influence across our project. 

This visualization prompted our team to deeply reflect on the distribution of power across our project.  We observed that the people who receive services and those who provide services held the least amount of power, while the funders held the most.  

Finally, we committed to ongoing reflective practice as a team – because equity is not a checkbox or an outcome we can acquire. Reflective practice is a necessary part of evaluative thinking and liberation work. This meeting space was inspired by the work of Shiree Teng and the WellPower team’s AEA Presentation on their Equity, Love, and Liberation practice. Some themes covered thus far are unlearning white supremacy culture, reclaiming our evaluation practice as an act in service of community, and holding sacred the inextricable linkage of personal and professional.  

Hot Tips:  

• If “Equity” is a charged topic in your geopolitical or cultural region… Be aware that the role of the evaluator is to speak power to truth in a way which will be heard. You can practice Equitable Evaluation without ever saying the word “equity”.  
• Support and uplift your peers. Set aside meeting time to reunite personal and professional.  
• Celebrate diversity of experience and identity. Reflect and share: How does your identity, experience, and culture shape your evaluation practice?  

Rad Resources:  

• The Data Equity Framework provokes reflection on your evaluation: Who chose the questions? What assumptions were made? Whose world view are centered? 
• Engage with the Transformative Power of Love towards yourself and community. 
• Recognize White Supremacy Culture and reflect how these beliefs shape your work. 
• Join us in Shifting the Evaluation Paradigm: The Equitable Evaluation Framework (EEF)™ 
• Do No Harm Guide: Applying Equity Awareness in Data Visualization 

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The American Evaluation Association is hosting LGBT Issues TIG Week with our colleagues in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Issues Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our LGBT TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.