194 - How funders and evaluators working together can craft effective evaluation stories furthering evaluation uptake and relevance.

Abstract Information: A compelling narrative that weaves together themes, statistics, and participant voices telling the story of the ‘what’, ‘so what’, and ‘now what’ can be key to evaluation utility. Fortunately, today most evaluators pay more attention than ever before to the people behind the data, upholding equitable evaluation principles in evaluation design and implementation. Yet, without adequate attention to evaluation users and champions’ broader contexts, especially decision makers’ needs and timelines, even good evaluations are at risk of limited use. In this session, Foundation evaluators and external evaluation partners will share their experiences of evaluation challenges in philanthropy and offer promising practices that could help enhance evaluation utility, with a focus on storytelling and relationships. These include understanding funder context, how they learn, their audiences’ appetite for information, evolving institutional priorities and the pace of change; and investing in relationships that generate mutuality with budgets and timelines that support working iteratively. We will discuss the value of moving beyond cutting-edge methods, placing greater focus instead on contextualizing findings and crafting compelling and digestible stories that evaluation users can easily employ to meet their diverse audiences’ learning needs, amplifying the utility of evaluations to support strategy refinement and adaptive management. Discussion will follow to learn from participants’ experiences. Session participants will leave with greater appreciation for why Foundation evaluation and external evaluation partners should strive to work as a united team with the shared goal of communicating evaluation findings as stories that inspire action and drive change.

Relevance Statement: