Hello Colleagues! I am Monifa Beverly, Owner of Beverly Consulting Group in Charlotte, NC, Co-Founder of Linked Arms Evaluation, and current President of the North Carolina Evaluators Network (NCEN).
To kick off NCEN Week here on AEA365, I recently talked with our founder and current NCEN member, Sally L. Bond. I wanted to understand the origins and history of our organization and brainstorm about the future of our NCEN community. Sally started our organization in 1999 in search of a local professional community as an independent consultant. She posted on an AEA listserv and started having informal lunches with evaluators in the Research Triangle area (around Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, NC). For the first decade, the Research Triangle Park Evaluators (RTPE) continued having informal gatherings and grew to professional development activities. With encouragement from Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead, Sally submitted an application for AEA local affiliate status, and in 2009 RTPE became a recognized AEA affiliate with its first elected slate of officers.
Then came COVID-19. When meetings moved online in 2020, evaluators from across North Carolina, who may not have been able to join in person, could now join online. In 2021, the organization expanded statewide and was renamed NCEN.
Lessons Learned
The state-wide expansion is exactly what Sally and I kept circling back to in our conversation. As she put it, when RTPE was geographically defined, “the community was set” and you saw the same faces regularly. Going statewide opened the door to far more people, and it raised the question NCEN is still sitting with: How do we cultivate local evaluation communities across an entire state/region? During the 2026 AEA conference, I look forward to having conversations with AEA local affiliates to brainstorm and share ideas that can enhance our NCEN work.
What struck me most, though, was something Sally said near the end of our call: she’s proud of having started NCEN, but even prouder of everyone who’s kept it going since 1999, because an organization only survives if it keeps meeting members’ professional needs.
NCEN’s mission has not changed much from Sally’s original vision: enhancing evaluation practice and networking across North Carolina and promoting evaluation as a profession. Guided by our values of Inclusion, Innovation, and Investment, NCEN today offers professional development, an active listserv, and leadership opportunities for evaluators at every career stage.
What started as one evaluation consultant seeking professional community has become a professional home for evaluators across an entire state!
Rad Resources
- Visit the NCEN website for more information on events and resources.
- Curious about our full history and current board? Check out our About page.
Hot Tips
- Are you a current evaluator, student, or professional interested in evaluation in North Carolina? NCEN membership is open to you at any career stage.
- Want to get involved? We’re always looking for volunteers to lead events or help with program planning.
The American Evaluation Association is hosting North Carolina (NC) Evaluators Affiliate Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from NC Affiliate 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.