Greetings! I’m Elizabeth Devaney, an organizational learning consultant and evaluator in the San Francisco Bay Area. After 30 years in nonprofit leadership, I returned to school to study how evaluators can better help organizations strengthen their work in times of change. One of the most useful tools I discovered on my doctoral journey was the concept of double-loop learning.

Consider this scenario. An organization reviews the findings of a program evaluation and responds appropriately: staff adjust their outreach strategies, revise workflows, and improve participant communications. Activities, outputs, and outcomes are monitored according to the program’s logic model and theory of change. However, six months later the program’s results remain poor. Why? Because the organization may have learned from the evaluation, but only within the bounds of its existing assumptions.

Chris Argyris and Donald Schön describe organizational learning as occurring through single- and double-loop pathways. Single-loop learning improves existing actions, while double-loop learning examines whether the assumptions, beliefs, and governing variables behind those actions remain valid. Single-loop learning asks, “Are we doing things right?” while double-loop learning asks, “Are we doing the right things?” Both questions matter. But more precise data will not resolve a problem when the underlying explanation of how change is actually happening becomes invalid.

Lesson Learned: Every theory of change is a collection of assumptions

A theory of change or logic model shows a precise sequence of activities and outcomes, but each arrow contains an assumptive claim: If we do this, then that will happen. Those claims may take for granted that participants trust the organization, staff possess effective interpersonal skills, or that external conditions remain stable.

When results fall short of expectations, we often focus on the boxes: was the activity implemented with fidelity? Did our outreach reach enough people? Were our communications compelling? We check to see if we did everything right. This is single-loop learning.

Double-loop learning directs attention to the arrows: what do we believe connects this activity to that outcome, and what evidence could we gather to test that belief? Double-loop learning opens new opportunities for evaluation and, as a result, program improvement.

Hot Tips

Make assumptions visible before prioritizing them

I invite teams to annotate each connection in their logic model or theory of change by completing this sentence: “We expect A to lead to B because we assume ______.” We then examine the assumptions using three questions:

1. How critical is this assumption to achieving the intended outcome?
2. How certain is it?
3. What are the consequences if it is incorrect?

Assumptions that are highly consequential and highly uncertain are strong candidates for testing.

Turn critical assumptions into learning questions

Reframe assumptions as questions the evaluation can investigate. The assumption that “Participants will use the service if we communicate more frequently,” becomes, “What conditions influence whether participants view the service as relevant, accessible, and trustworthy?” The latter question opens inquiry beyond tactics and may reveal barriers in program design, organizational relationships, or the service model itself.

Create a recurring assumption review

A well-designed logic model helps teams make their causal reasoning explicit and offers assumptions to test. For example, evaluators may introduce a set of constituent interviews to investigate how participants’ current experiences might be affecting their responsiveness to the organization’s communications. Ask how the evidence strengthens, weakens, or complicates the leaders’ understandings, and what must be reconsidered as a result.

Our challenge as evaluators is rarely convincing organizations to improve performance. Our greater opportunity is helping them identify which measures deserve examination – because sometimes the most useful finding is not a more precise answer, but a better question.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building (OL-ECB) Topical Interest Group Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our OL-ECB 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 do so using the form on our website. 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.

Hi. We’re Kenneth Chomba, Network Coordinator at the African Coaching Network (ACN); Chris Kif, Co-Director at Sauti Bridge; and Maria Selde of Humanity United, whose team has accompanied ACN’s work as a learning partner. Between us, we support and evaluate social movements across Africa, work that rarely stays still long enough for a tidy programme cycle.

Complexity scientists, systems thinkers, and champions of developmental evaluation have warned us that linear frameworks, like traditional logframes, clash with reality in volatile environments. Movements are complex adaptive systems; they don’t sit still when programs and data collection are treated as separate, sequential tracks. The work and the meaning of the work happen at the same time, often in the same breath, and a framework built for one doesn’t always serve the other. Here is a story about what that looks like in practice, from inside our own evaluation.

As ACN turns a decade old, we faced the question every long-running network faces: How do you know what a decade of work has meant? A conventional review asks for numbers: trainings delivered, campaigns supported, coaches retained. We had those numbers, but they describe program outputs, and ACN is a living system in thirteen countries spanning five languages, a community of people who found each other doing this work long before it had a name

So we evaluated ourselves differently. Instead of a logframe review, we used Roots, Branches, and Fruits, or RBF, a framework that treats a movement’s life the way a living thing grows rather than the way a project gets delivered. Roots asks what let our coaches tell the truth about what they were living through, often for the first time. Branches asks where that truth travelled once it was safe to speak, into new alliances, new rooms we hadn’t planned to enter. Fruits asks what became possible only when both had held.

What that process surfaced wasn’t only the wins. It surfaced what we’ve started calling the Resilience Tax, the toll absorbed, quietly and often unobserved, by whoever holds a network together through repression, funding cycles, and grief.

Lesson Learned: Naming the Hard Truth is What Makes the Next Step Possible

RBF has a name for this part of the work, the Bitter Harvest, the truths a movement must sit with honestly before it can move on. For us, that meant admitting things a funder report never asks about: the burnout carried by a small core of people, the cost of holding a family-style network together for a decade. Naming it honestly didn’t slow us down. It was what let us imagine our next ten years with clarity.

In the fields of peacebuilding evaluation and research in conflict-affected environments, practitioners have long grappled with how standard metrics miss the invisible labor of safety, trauma-informed accompaniment, and social cohesion. Organisations and networks operating in contexts of fragility know that quantitative outputs (like training delivered or documents produced) frequently mask the profound human infrastructure required just to keep a community breathing.

Hot Tip: Shift From Tools to Mindset

Evaluating in unstable conditions requires a shift in mindset over new tools. And more often, the work is not fitting neatly within a programme because of such fragility. This is therefore an invitation to consider understanding change as spiral movement – where the untidy work and its meaning belong together.

So, we leave you with a question: how can your evaluation capture more than the wins, counting what it costs to get there, beyond the money and the budget lines?

Rad Resources

• The full ACN learning Journey
• Turning emerging ideas into practice (blog): the Inclusive Rigor Design Canvas (resource)
• Peacebuilding Evaluation Resources

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building (OL-ECB) Topical Interest Group Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our OL-ECB 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 do so using the form on our website. 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.

Greetings from Wisconsin! My name is Michelle Borckardt, and I am an internal evaluator at Gateway Technical College. I recently completed my Ph.D. in Leadership, Innovation, and Continuous Improvement, where I explored how public and nonprofit organizations can most effectively use evaluation results to support organizational learning and change.

While completing my dissertation, I noticed a common pattern: many evaluation projects that led to meaningful improvements occurred during a leadership transition. Whether it was a new K-12 school superintendent, new board of directors, or new nonprofit program director, these transitions offered a unique window for evaluation, learning, and improvement.

Lessons Learned: Leadership Transitions as a Window for Evaluation Use

• New leaders are less entrenched. They are often willing to try things that previous leaders may not have considered. Longstanding leaders often have deeply held assumptions about their programs. A new leader is less tied to tradition and is often more open to exploring what the data actually says.
• The desire to “make a mark.” New leaders often want to understand what’s working and what isn’t so they can set a new direction and make their mark on the organization. Evaluation can be an important way to gain this understanding and surface opportunities for improvement.
• A shift in organizational culture. Leadership transitions inherently introduce uncertainty. During this period, the team pays closer attention to the new leader’s priorities and operational methods. If the leader arrives with a passion for evaluation and organizational learning, that helps cultivate a learning culture.

That said, leadership transitions do not always lead to positive change. I have sadly seen some new leaders erode psychological safety, create confusion, and destabilize team effectiveness. Evaluators must approach these moments with humility, empathy, and close attention to organizational culture.

Hot Tips for Engaging New Leaders

• Schedule a passion and goals exploration meeting. Request time to meet the new leader to explore their passions, why they chose to work at this organization, and what they see as the organization’s biggest challenges over the next 3-5 years. Foster their curiosity by showing them how evaluation can help them better achieve their specific mission and goals.
• Explore the leader’s prior experience with data and evaluation. Many leaders value data but may lack the specific skills to analyze and interpret it. Ask how they have seen data used effectively or ineffectively in previous roles. If they lack evaluation experience, offer practical support in framing evaluation questions, collecting data, interpreting findings, and identifying next steps.
• Involve the right stakeholders early. Leadership transitions also provide an opportunity to build shared understanding of the organization’s needs among the entire team. Encourage the leader to engage a diverse range of stakeholders in designing evaluations, interpreting findings, and using the results.
• Model the culture. Leaders shape organizational culture through what they communicate, the behaviors they model, and the behaviors of others they reward or sanction. Encourage the leader to communicate the importance of continuous improvement while establishing a psychologically safe environment. When a leader models and rewards data-informed behaviors, it signals to the rest of the organization that evaluation is a vehicle for learning and excellence, not for blame or punishment.
• Focus on professional accountability. The team may ignore even the best evaluation project if the status quo is more comfortable than change. Encourage the leader to hold the organization accountable to a high degree of excellence by assigning task owners, timelines, and follow-up conversations to track implementation of evaluation findings.

When the organization has a new leader, embrace this unique opportunity for change! It is a wonderful chance to embed evaluation into the organization’s future.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building (OL-ECB) Topical Interest Group Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our OL-ECB 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 do so using the form on our website. 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.

Before beginning my GEDI internship, I was already familiar with systems change through my doctoral research. I use systems approaches to examine the conditions that sustain inequities and to make visible the relationships among policies, practices, resources, relationships, power, and mental models.

Then, across I2I’s work, I participated in evaluation processes designed not only to measure outcomes but also to support learning and decision-making. Evaluation frameworks examined change across individuals, organizations, portfolios, and broader systems. Theories of change were revisited as strategies developed. This helped me see that evaluating systems change requires more than adding systems-level outcomes to a framework. It also requires an evaluation process that can respond to complexity, emerging information, and changes in context. The focus is not only on what has changed, but also on what people are learning and how that learning informs the next decision.

Culturally responsive and equitable evaluation added another important dimension. A systems approach can help identify the conditions influencing an issue, but it does not automatically address whose knowledge shapes the analysis. Culturally responsive practice asks who defines the problem, whose experiences inform the evaluation questions, what counts as evidence, who interprets the findings, and how the results are communicated. In this way, cultural responsiveness does not sit beside a systems approach. It shapes the analysis a systems approach makes possible.

Lessons Learned

How we evaluate is already shaping the system. This is where “impact is a verb” began to mean something different to me. If impact is only a noun, we wait for it to appear in a final report. When impact becomes a verb, it shows up in how we listen, co-create, question, revise, share power, and respond to what we learn. Evaluation does not simply document change. It participates in creating the conditions through which change becomes possible.

The three concepts strengthen one another. Systems thinking helps evaluators examine the conditions that sustain inequities. Cultural responsiveness helps ensure that culture, context, knowledge, and power are considered throughout that examination. Treating impact as a verb connects both to action by asking how measurement, learning, and communication influence what happens next.

Hot Tips

Connect each evaluation activity to a use. For every evaluation question, indicator, sensemaking activity, or product, ask: Who will use this? What decision could it inform? How might it help people adapt their strategy? This shifts evaluation from producing evidence to creating opportunities for evidence to be used.

Look for impact in the present tense. Ask yourself: What are we practicing now that reflects the future we say we want? Whose knowledge is shaping our decisions? What are we doing differently because of what we learned? If impact exists only in the future tense, our current practices may need another look.

Rad Resources

• Emily F. Gates and Pablo Vidueira’s Evaluative Inquiry for Systemic Change: A Guide to Shift Beyond Fixes to Lasting Value offers guidance for embedding evaluative inquiry within systemic-change efforts.
• I2I’s Impact Is a Verb series provides examples of how measurement, learning, communication, and strategy can work together in practice.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from AEA’s GEDI Program and its interns. For more information on GEDI, see their webpage here: http://www.eval.org/GEDI  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 do so using the form on our website. 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.

Lessons Learned

Methods are more than searchable words

Both tools performed well when reports used straightforward language. When a report said “we conducted semi-structured interviews” or “we distributed a survey,” ChatGPT and Gemini recognized those methods consistently. The challenge came when evaluators embedded methods into narrative, describing how they tracked community sentiment or interpreted program data. The tools struggled to separate a data source from an actual analytical procedure. When writing becomes descriptive instead of clinical, AI gets confused. That’s when human evaluators come in.

The tool you choose shapes what you find

The two models process text in fundamentally different ways. ChatGPT stays literal, focusing on what is written on the page. Gemini attempts to read between the lines, looking for underlying themes. In one report, Gemini recognized that evaluators were using inductive reasoning based on surrounding context, but ChatGPT missed it because the word “inductive” never appeared. If you rely on one platform, you’re getting a particular kind of extraction, shaped by that tool’s personality and limitations.

Hot Tips

Upload strategy changes everything

The most important finding came from something I didn’t expect. When I uploaded all ten reports to ChatGPT at once, it gave me 95 candidate methods. Using those same reports and the same prompt but uploading them one by one, ChatGPT generated 862 rows. Gemini went from 22 rows to 121. You might think more rows means better work, but it doesn’t. When AI focuses on a single document, it becomes overzealous, treating simple program metrics as research methods and splitting one survey into twenty rows based on individual questions. Those extra rows may be false positives and fragmented data. More volume may just mean more cleaning.

Prompting is methodology

My original prompt was too broad, asking for a structured table showing what methods were most used. That gave ChatGPT permission to summarize, placing interviews and focus groups in the same cell. The revised prompt restructured the approach. The AI took on the role of an expert evaluator and analyst. Each individual method received its own row. Exact page numbers became non-negotiable for every claim, which helped catch hallucinations. The AI also had to explain how each method was executed, not just name it. How you structure your prompt shapes what data comes back and how much verification work you’ll need to do.

Rad Resources

Mainstream models miss nuance because they’re trained on dominant, Western datasets. Tools like Aisha, Latimer, and Cohere’s Aya recognize linguistic patterns and lived experiences that standard AI overlooks. Running one alongside your workflow offers a second lens on community context.

AI works as a strong first-pass tool. It moves through hundreds of pages quickly and flags where methods might be hiding. What happens next is where human judgment takes over. You open the document, go to the page the AI cited, verify what it found, and separate procedures from data sources. Because the goal isn’t just to move faster or produce bigger spreadsheets. The goal is to make sure the people and communities behind the data are still seen and understood correctly.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from AEA’s GEDI Program and its interns. For more information on GEDI, see their webpage here: http://www.eval.org/GEDI  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 do so using the form on our website. 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.

I made many wonderful memories during my GEDI internship, but one experience left a lasting visual impression on me: the drum circle led by members of the Sankofa Soul Collective during a two-day educational leadership conference hosted by LAEP as part of the 21CSLA program. The entire conference was intentionally centered on care, community, and equity, but the drum circle stayed with me because it allowed me to see care and community come to life.

Members of the Sankofa Soul Collective shared how rhythm can foster healing, strengthen community, and even synchronize our heartbeats. They invited everyone to participate through drumming, movement, and reflection. As I looked around the room, I saw educational leaders, facilitators, and even some of their children laughing, dancing, and making music together. For a moment, titles and roles disappeared. The room was filled with connection, joy, and a shared sense of belonging.

Lessons Learned: The Ripple Effect of Our Choices

At first glance, this experience might seem unrelated to evaluation. Yet it had a lasting impact in my thinking of what we evaluate and why it matters. As I watched educational leaders and their children laugh, dance, and build community together, I realized that the impact of a program extends far beyond what we typically measure. Additionally, the choice to attend the conference did not only lead to the leaders gaining professional knowledge, but also building relationships, finding a sense of belonging, and, for some, creating meaningful memories with their children. Those experiences may shape how they lead schools, support educators, and ultimately influence the students and families they serve. The choices that they make ripple outward across classrooms, families, and future generations.

This realization also made me think more deeply about the choices we make as evaluators. We decide which questions to ask, whose voices to include, which outcomes to measure, and what falls outside the scope of our evaluation. We cannot examine everything, but those decisions still matter. What we choose to capture, and what we leave unexamined, shapes the story an evaluation tells. That story can then inform decisions made by practitioners, leaders, policymakers, and communities, creating ripple effects of its own. As evaluators, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to ensure that our work reflects the people and communities it is intended to serve.

Hot Tip: Be Curious, Be Intentional, Be in Community

Stay curious about the community you are learning from and what your evaluation captures, what it might miss, and how the choices you make along the way may shape its impact. Ask, “What might happen because we chose to ask this question, include these voices, or leave something out?” Even choosing not to examine something is a choice.

These choices do not have to be made alone. In fact, they are often better made in community. Talk them through with colleagues, community members, and the people most connected to the work. Different perspectives can challenge our assumptions, reveal what we may not see on our own, and help us better understand the potential consequences of our decisions.

Staying curious, engaging in dialogue, and making choices in community can help us be more intentional about the stories our evaluations tell and the ripple effects they may have.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from AEA’s GEDI Program and its interns. For more information on GEDI, see their webpage here: http://www.eval.org/GEDI  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 do so using the form on our website. 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.

For this blog post, I wanted to reflect on one of the lessons from my GEDI experience that changed how I think about culturally responsive evaluation (CRE). More specifically, I want to share how my individual project taught me that culturally responsive practice can happen in the small decisions we make throughout an evaluation, sometimes right in the moment.

Lessons Learned: CRE Can Happen in the Moment

Before my GEDI experience, I often thought about CRE through the larger decisions that go into an evaluation, such as what voices need to be represented, what questions we ask, how we interpret our data, and how findings are shared. One of the biggest lessons I am taking with me from my GEDI experience is that CRE can also happen through the smaller interactions between an evaluator and the people participating in interviews for an evaluation.

For my GEDI individual project, I analyzed interviews from an evaluation of a higher education program supporting students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. I did not conduct the interviews myself, but I had several conversations with the interviewer about how she approached them.

She shared with me that although she entered each interview with a prewritten protocol, she did not treat that protocol as something she had to rigidly follow. Instead, she adapted her questions in real time based on what each person shared with her. She made room for people to talk about experiences that were important to them, affirmed what they shared, and asked follow-up questions when something came up that the original protocol did not fully capture.

What really stuck with me was when she described this to me as CRE in action. Before this, I had never thought about adapting an interview protocol in the moment as a culturally responsive practice.

Hot Tip: Let Your Protocol Be a Gentle Guide

We all know that interview protocols are important since they help us make sure we are asking the questions needed to answer our evaluation questions and provide consistency across interviews. But one lesson I learned is that consistency does not have to mean rigidity.

Sometimes being responsive means recognizing that the person sitting in front of you is telling you something that your protocol did not anticipate. Instead of immediately moving on to the next question, we can stop, listen, and ask ourselves: Is this person telling me something important that I did not think to ask?

Making space for those moments can help us better understand someone’s experience on their own terms.

Lessons Learned: Responsiveness Is Part of the Method

As I continue growing as an evaluator, this is one lesson from GEDI that I know I will carry with me. CRE does not only live in our evaluation plans, frameworks, or final reports. It also lives in how we listen, how we respond, and how willing we are to adjust when the people we are learning from take us somewhere we did not expect.

Sometimes, culturally responsive evaluation can be as simple, and as meaningful, as knowing when to follow the person instead of the protocol.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from AEA’s GEDI Program and its interns. For more information on GEDI, see their webpage here: http://www.eval.org/GEDI  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 do so using the form on our website. 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.

Pláticas are informal conversations deeply connected to Hispanic and Latinx oral traditions of sharing stories, emotional support, and wisdom. In the 1970s, Latinx researchers began utilizing pláticas as an effective method to engage marginalized participants and collect data in ways that honored their lived realities, focusing on researcher-participant connection and reciprocity. Seeking to conceptualize pláticas as a methodology that shifts research from an extractive process to a relational space for co-constructing knowledge and equity, Fierros and Delgado Bernal identified five principles among scholars engaging with pláticas in their work.

Lessons Learned: Applying the 5 Principles of Plática Methodology to My GEDI Project

In my GEDI experience, adopting pláticas shifted the work at my host site from an “objective” audit preparation to a tool for empowerment. Here are lessons I learned applying the five principles at my host site:

1. Grounded in Chicana and Latina Feminist Theory: Preparing for accreditation was a mandate from the host site leadership. Grounding the evaluation approach in critical feminist theory allowed us to center the staff (who are predominantly Chicanx) by valuing their experiences and opinions as essential knowledge to counterbalance that top-down imposition.

2. Honoring Participants as Co-Constructors of Knowledge: Rather than treating staff as data sources, we created an accreditation preparation committee with members from multiple departments. Our monthly committee meetings invited staff to draw upon their daily expertise to co-design a localized logic model and a strategic accreditation preparation roadmap.

3. Connecting Lived Experiences to Research Inquiry: By welcoming everyday life into the evaluation, flexible conversations helped us uncover how administrative understaffing impacted staff well-being, directly affecting survey readiness.

4. Providing a Potential Space for Healing: Grounded in relational care, judgment-free spaces allowed staff to unburden challenges and speak openly about burnout, transforming administrative anxiety into collective relief.

5. Driven by Reflexivity, Reciprocity, and Vulnerability: Reflecting on my positionality as a Brazilian language educator and emerging evaluator allowed me to identify shared and distinct cultural aspects with Chicanx staff. Sharing food from our respective cultures during our pláticas was an effective strategy that opened space to ground our interactions in mutual care and trust, deepening the understanding of our similarities and differences. Furthermore, showing vulnerability about my own learning curve in the home care industry did not weaken my credibility; it created space for staff to recognize just how indispensable their everyday institutional knowledge was to our evaluation process.

Hence, when applying the five principles of a plática methodology to my GEDI work, I found that, by design, I had to reject outsiderness and embrace fluid, relational roles. When we utilize pláticas, we do not just collect data; we honor lived experiences, shift power dynamics, and bring the heart of Culturally Responsive Evaluation to life.

Rad Resources: Some Key Articles to Dive Deeper into Pláticas

• Check out Fierros and Delgado Bernal’s 2016 seminal article on the conceptualization of pláticas as a methodology.
• Learn more practical implications of pláticas in different contexts through Regina Ayala Chavez’s 2025 article.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from AEA’s GEDI Program and its interns. For more information on GEDI, see their webpage here: http://www.eval.org/GEDI  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 do so using the form on our website. 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.

Hello, AEA365 community! I’m Yakubu Wule Sini, a PhD student in Health Promotion at the University of Oklahoma and an emerging evaluator with experience working in international and conflict-affected settings with United Nations International Organization for Migration, Center for Civilians in Conflict and Creatives Associates International. As a Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) scholar, I have had the opportunity to work with Westat. Through that experience, I strengthened my evaluation skills while learning lessons that have reshaped how I think about evaluation practice that I would like to share.

Lessons Learned

Elevating Community Voices Strengthens Evaluation

One of the most important lessons I learned through the GEDI program is the value of culturally responsive evaluation. My GEDI experience reinforced that program participants and community members should not be viewed simply as subjects of an evaluation. They are important stakeholders whose experiences, perspectives, and knowledge can strengthen the evaluation process. For me, culturally responsive evaluation means intentionally creating space for the voices of people who are most affected by programs and policies. This is particularly important when working with communities whose perspectives may historically have been overlooked. As evaluators, we can produce more meaningful work when we listen to communities, recognize the context in which programs are implemented, and consider whose voices are represented in our evaluation processes.

Professional Networks Are an Important Part of an Evaluator’s Growth

Through GEDI and the broader American Evaluation Association community, I have had opportunities to connect with evaluators with different backgrounds, experiences, and areas of expertise. These relationships have reminded me that professional growth does not happen in isolation. Conversations with experienced evaluators can expose emerging professionals to new approaches, provide mentorship, and create opportunities for collaboration.

Hot Tip: Emerging evaluators should intentionally build relationships within the evaluation community. Attend professional events, introduce yourself to other evaluators, ask thoughtful questions, and maintain the relationships you develop. Networking is not simply about finding your next opportunity; it is also about creating a community from which you can learn and to which you can contribute.

Connecting Evaluation Theory to Real-World Decisions

Through my work with Westat, I contributed to evaluation-related activities, including comprehensive document reviews and the development of monitoring and evaluation tools. Through this experience I was able to synchronize academic concepts with real world evaluation practice. Evaluation tools and findings are not simply project products; they meant to inform decisions about how programs are implemented and improved.

Hot Tip: When gaining practical evaluation experience, look beyond completing the assigned task. Ask yourself: Who will use this information? How might it influence a program or community? Whose perspective might be missing? These questions can help us remain focused on the people and decisions our evaluations are intended to serve.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from AEA’s GEDI Program and its interns. For more information on GEDI, see their webpage here: http://www.eval.org/GEDI  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 do so using the form on our website. 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.

As a doctoral candidate who is entering another year of uncertainty (losing contracts, not knowing what funding will be available, witnessing jobs being lost across industries), it is more apparent than ever that power is not equal. It’s crucial for those in positions of greater influence to critically consider their responsibilities and the impact of their positionality.

I reflect on my own position, as a GEDI alumna. Through my experience in the GEDI program, I have been afforded the opportunities to learn from and with trailblazers at the Annual American Evaluation Association (AEA) Conference in Portland, OR. There, we were constantly reminded of the potential impact emerging evaluators can have, and that shaping our influence in the field of evaluation is in our hands.

Since getting to learn with my colleagues in Portland, there has been one apparent impact that my fellow GEDI (SOULTICE) members have left me: the power of community. As we all navigate these uncertain times, it is our responsibility not only to uplift each other, but also to take care of ourselves. This is something that culturally responsive evaluation continues to remind me of: that people’s lived experiences, contexts, and needs are not a “one-size-fits-all,” and neither are the ways we show up for one another. Care, just like evaluation, has to be responsive. Although I am still learning, I would like to share some valuable tips for those navigating similar journeys.

Hot Tips

1. Lean on your community. Throughout my experience as a GEDI, the power of community and the importance of relationships has been demonstrated time and time again. Whether it was checking in on one-another, sharing resources, or simply holding space during overwhelming moments, I was reminded that we are not meant to navigate uncertainty alone. Community does not always mean having all the answers but it can look like sending a quick message, asking for advice, or even just being in the presence of people who understand your journey.
2. Advocate and stay informed. When things feel uncertain, it can be tempting to disconnect, but this is actually when staying engaged matters most. Staying informed about institutional changes, funding shifts, and broader societal trends allows us to make intentional decisions and support one another more effectively. Advocacy can take many forms: asking questions, sharing opportunities (something my fellow GEDI members have done for me throughout this process), or pushing for transparency in spaces where decisions are being made. Even small acts of advocacy contribute to a larger culture of accountability and care.
3. Celebrate Small Wins. When the bigger picture feels unstable, it becomes even more important to acknowledge all stages of the process even in its smallest forms. Completing a task, sending an email, showing up to a meeting, or simply getting through a difficult day, are all wins worth recognizing. Celebrating small moments helps us maintain momentum and reminds us that growth is still happening, even when outcomes feel uncertain.
4. Self-care if not optional. I say this as a reminder to myself just as much as anyone else. It’s easy to push through and put everything else first, especially in academic and professional spaces that reward productivity. But we can’t pour from an empty cup. Self-care doesn’t have to be anything extreme but it can be going for a walk, getting enough rest, stepping away when needed, or doing something that helps you feel like yourself again. Taking care of yourself is essential to keep doing the work we are doing.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Graduate Education Diversity Internship (GEDI) Program week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from AEA’s GEDI Program and its interns. For more information on GEDI, see their webpage here: http://www.eval.org/GEDI  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 do so using the form on our website. 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.