Hello! We’re Dr. Dana Smiles and Dr. Angelicque Tucker Blackmon, evaluators and researchers who are passionate about designing creative evaluation experiences that are both rigorous and deeply human.

Resistance has been on our minds lately.

Not the kind that comes from avoiding accountability. The quieter kind. The resistance that appears when an organization hears the word evaluation and a subtle sense of unease settles in.

Evaluators…we treat that resistance as a barrier to overcome. We simplify the language. We improve the surveys. We attempt to explain the process more clearly. We quietly proclaim… ‘Please do not resist…I am here to help’.

But what if that resistance is actually information?

Many organizations don’t choose evaluation because they’re curious about it. They choose it because it is required, which leaves very little room to acknowledge the emotional experience of being evaluated.

There is a subtle vulnerability in asking people to explain themselves, justify their work, translate deeply held values into measurable outcomes, and share stories that often belong to entire communities. Even with the best intentions, evaluators can unintentionally become the embodiment of something organizations never truly chose–vulnerability; because on the surface, vulnerability feels like choosing risk, like betting on trust before trust has even been earned.

Lessons Learned:

Perhaps this is one reason the evaluation process so often feels heavy before it even begins.

What if evaluation didn’t start with a logic model or an interview guide?

What if it started by recognizing our shared humanity through creative practice?

As people, we evaluate every day. We constantly assess whether something is working, whether a relationship feels safe, whether a decision aligns with our values, whether we’re moving toward the future we hope to build for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

We’re also inherently creative.

These two deeply human capabilities, evaluating and creating, are rarely invited into conversation with one another.

Art changes that.

Creative methods, like movement, dance, spoken word, and song, have a remarkable ability to lower our defenses. They create space where conversations feel less performative and more honest. They invite curiosity, reflection, and imagination into a process that often feels technical, intimidating, or even emotionally charged.

The goal isn’t simply to make evaluation easier to understand. It’s to make evaluation feel more human. Because accessibility isn’t only about technical knowledge.

It’s emotional.

When people feel safe enough to define success on their own terms, something shifts. Evaluation becomes less about satisfying external requirements and more about building the capacity to understand one’s own work. Organizations begin identifying the outcomes that genuinely matter to them. They develop greater agency in conversations with funders, strengthen their programs, and become more confident telling their own stories of impact.

Ultimately, evaluation should exist to serve people.

The stories, experiences, and vulnerabilities entrusted to evaluators are not simply data. They are reflections of people working to strengthen communities and improve lives.

Hot Tips:

If our work is truly in service of humanity, then our methods should embody that commitment from the very beginning. Perhaps the future of evaluation isn’t simply better methods.

Perhaps it’s about creating the conditions where people feel safe enough to insist that the evaluation process includes the variables of interest they believe matter most, the ones they see as essential to their human flourishing.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Arts, Culture, and Museums (ACM) TIG Week. The contributions all week come from ACA 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.

As we begin and continue to investigate the enormous interconnections between arts and health, we have found that evaluation practice becomes most robust when we bridge the gap between traditional health rigor and arts-based meaning-making. While health evaluation often focuses on effectiveness, implementation, and population impact, the arts and culture sector brings deep expertise in participation, context, and culturally grounded experience. This collaboration is vital because health does not happen only in clinics or hospitals; it happens in the neighborhoods, relationships, stories, and rituals where people gather and feel truly seen.

The evidence for this connection is substantial. The World Health Organization (WHO) synthesized evidence from more than 3,000 studies and found that the arts can support health promotion, illness prevention, and management across a person’s entire lifespan. We are seeing this evidence in new models coming out of the State of Minnesota with their Arts & Health Evaluation Framework, the emergence of State-wide arts & health policies, and the increase of arts prescribing in healthcare settings. As the Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy noted, health risks of chronic loneliness are as deadly as smoking 15 cigarettes a day – and engaging with museums has shown to play a major role in combating feelings of isolation.

So for us as evaluators, this intersection pushes us to ask better questions. It is not enough to simply prove that arts and culture “work” in a vacuum. Instead, we must ask: For whom? In what settings? And whose definitions of health, healing, and value are we centering? By combining health evaluation methods with participatory and culturally responsive approaches, we can look beyond symptom reduction and begin measuring constructs like belonging, joy, trust, and agency.

Rad Resources

For those interested in exploring how the arts can support health and well-being, we recommend checking out these resources:

• The WHO arts and health evidence review for a comprehensive look at the global evidence base.
• The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) community-engaged resources for framing partnerships in the United States.
• The UCL Museum Wellbeing Measures Toolkit for practical measurement tools in museum settings!
• Arts & Health Evaluation Toolkit developed by the Arts & Health Evaluation Toolkit (AHET) developed by the Centre for Music and Health at the National University of Singapore and centered more so on university-led initiatives.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Arts, Culture, and Museums (ACM) TIG Week. The contributions all week come from ACA 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.

I’m Dr. Emely Medina-Rodriguez, former chair of the Latinx Responsive Evaluation Discourse AEA TIG (LaRED TIG). Through my work with Latinx/e communities and my involvement in LaRED, I’ve focused on creating spaces where Latinx/e evaluators can connect, learn from one another, and bring their lived experiences into the evaluation field. I’m excited to continue supporting LaRED’s vision of greater representation, collaboration, and leadership among Latinx/e evaluators. 

And now, I’m excited to introduce LaRED’s new co-chairs, Elia Bueno and Eva Chavez! As I talked with them about their experiences, what brought them to LaRED, and where they see the future of Latinx/e evaluators going, I was reminded of why this community is so special. While their paths are different, both bring a strong commitment to building community, creating space for others, and helping shape the future of evaluation.

From Passion to Purpose

For Elia, her path to evaluation was shaped by the people and communities she encountered early in her career. After completing her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she worked as a mental health caseworker and a dual-language elementary school teacher, primarily serving low-income Latinx/e communities in Texas.

Seeing the health and educational disparities experienced by children and families made her want to better understand the systems and programs affecting their lives. It also motivated her to pursue applied research and evaluation to contribute to programs and policies that can address some of the barriers Latinx/e communities experience.

Her decision to take on a leadership role with LaRED builds on that same commitment. For Elia, leadership is an opportunity to continue developing her own skills while creating space for other Latinx/e evaluators. She also sees it as a way to honor the evaluators who created LaRED and continue their work of making sure our voices are heard within AEA.

Eva’s path to leadership started with something a little different: the people she found in LaRED.

She was inspired by how consistently members show up for one another and generously share their time, knowledge, and experiences. Being surrounded by people she could learn from made her want to contribute to the group and help create opportunities for those conversations to continue.

And, as often happens in a good community, the exchange goes both ways. While Eva contributes her time and facilitation skills, LaRED has also given her resources, perspectives, and connections that she carries into her own evaluation practice.

Finding Community in the Field

So, why does having a space specifically for Latinx/e evaluators matter?

For Elia and Eva, it comes down to feeling seen, understood, and connected.

Elia reflected on how few Latinx/e evaluators there are in the field. Having a space where people understand what it can mean to work with Latinx/e communities, navigate different parts of our identities and cultures, or be the only person of color in an evaluation space can make a real difference.

For Eva, LaRED also provides a place to process some of the experiences that come with doing evaluation work. We often hear powerful—and sometimes difficult—stories from the communities we serve, especially during data collection. Having people who understand that experience gives us a place to talk, reflect, and support one another.

That kind of space feels especially important right now, when many of our identities and communities continue to face challenges.

Our Stories Shape the Work

Our experiences shape how we see the world, and both co-chairs see this as an important contribution Latinx/e evaluators bring to the field.

Language, culture, immigration, education, family, and so many other parts of our identities can shape how we understand communities and how we approach evaluation. But there is also no single Latinx/e experience.

That complexity is part of what makes this community so interesting. The word Latinx/e itself encompasses many different identities, histories, and experiences. Bringing those perspectives to the table can challenge traditional approaches to evaluation and help us think differently about what communities need.

Lesson Learned: The Future Has Ganas

When looking toward the future, both Elia and Eva hope to see greater representation and more leadership opportunities for Latinx/e evaluators across the field—not just in academia, but also in consulting, philanthropy, government, and the many other spaces where evaluation happens.

They also see an opportunity for the next generation to build on culturally responsive evaluation approaches while continuing to question, challenge, and expand them. The goal is not simply to enter the field, but to have a role in shaping where the field goes next.

When I asked them to describe the future of Latinx/e evaluators, Elia described it as creative, messy, diverse, and resilient. Eva described it as love, abundance, and ganas.

I think those words capture LaRED pretty well.

We are still growing. We are still figuring things out. We are learning from each other, challenging the field, supporting one another, and creating space for the next generation.

And, of course, we are doing it with a lot of ganas.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from LaRED Topical Interest Group 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.

Hello! I’m Arthur Hernández, an evaluator and educator whose work focuses on evaluation, community engagement, and the forms of knowledge we authorize as credible.

Evaluators are often asked whether findings are “generalizable.” The question appears technical, but it is also philosophical and ethical. From the standpoint of Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation, or CREE, we should ask not only whether findings travel beyond a setting, but also whose knowledge is being privileged, whose context is being erased, and who benefits from the claim.

Generalizability is rooted largely in positivist and post-positivist traditions. It assumes that knowledge can be strengthened by moving from particular observations to broader claims about populations, settings, or causal relationships. This logic is supported by probability sampling, standardization, measurement, control, and statistical inference. These are valuable tools. But they also carry assumptions: that context can be minimized, that co-variation can be controlled or otherwise managed, and that broad claims are often more valuable than situated understanding.

CREE challenges those assumptions. A CREE perspective begins with the premise that culture is not a variable to be added. Culture shapes the evaluation questions, relationships, instruments, interpretations, uses, and consequences of evaluation. It also shapes what counts as credible evidence. From this view, context is not a threat to validity but necessary for validity.

This is one reason qualitative methodologies are so important in CREE. Qualitative inquiry can help evaluators understand meaning, lived experience, history, identity, language, power, place, implementation conditions, and community priorities. These dimensions are often precisely what must be understood.

Qualitative evaluation is sometimes judged by the wrong standard. When qualitative findings are described as “not generalizable,” the statement may be technically accurate but it can also imply that the work is somehow less rigorous or less useful. That implication is mistaken.

Qualitative evaluation instead supports transferability, applicability, naturalistic generalization, analytic generalization, or contextually grounded use. Lincoln and Guba’s concept of transferability is especially helpful: the evaluator provides rich description so that users can judge whether findings fit another context. Stake’s naturalistic generalization and Patton’s extrapolation similarly recognize that people learn from cases through comparison, experience, pattern recognition, and practical judgment.

CREE adds another requirement: those judgments about transfer and use should not be made only by technical experts. They should include the people most affected by the program and the evaluation. Communities should have meaningful roles in interpreting findings, identifying what is (culturally) valid, and determining whether lessons from one setting can be responsibly applied in another.

Lessons Learned

Claims of generalizability can unintentionally erase cultural difference, local history, structural inequity, and community knowledge. A CREE stance requires us to examine the power embedded in broad claims.

Culture, place, relationships, and history are not noise or confounders to be controlled away. They are central to understanding whether a program works, for whom, under what conditions, and with what consequences.

In CREE, rigor includes technical adequacy, but it also includes cultural responsiveness, relational accountability, inclusion of marginalized voices, transparency, reflexivity, and attention to use and harm.

Transferability requires ethical judgment. Just because findings from one community appear useful elsewhere does not mean they should be applied without adaptation. Transfer requires careful attention to cultural fit, local priorities, power, and potential unintended consequences.

Hot Tips

Evaluators should consider more precise and culturally responsive language:

“These findings are context-specific and may be transferable to settings where communities judge the cultural, historical, and implementation conditions to be sufficiently similar.”

“This case supports analytic learning about the program theory, while requiring local adaptation before use elsewhere.”

“Applicability should be determined with, not merely for, the communities affected by the program.”

CREE requires us to be precise, humble, and accountable. Some evaluations can and should produce broader claims. But many qualitative evaluations are designed for a different kind of contribution: deep understanding, culturally situated meaning, practical wisdom, and responsible use. That contribution is not less rigorous. It is differently rigorous. And for many evaluation purposes, it is exactly the kind of knowledge we need.

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post 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, I’m Blanca Flor Guillen-Woods, Managing Partner at Strategic Learning Partners for Innovation (SLP4i), a social innovation and evaluation firm led by evaluators of color. I have conducted a variety of mixed-methods evaluations related to education, youth services, civic engagement, health, and intervention programs for over 25 years. Through a collaborative approach, my work at SLP4i supports programs and funders in clarifying contexts, desired outcomes, and impacts, identifying levers of change, and implementing strategic plans driven by community voice. 

Often, evaluations are led by researchers, not community members, and the work has limited impact because community voice and perspectives are not included in the process. I believe that social change requires strong partnerships and collaborative methods to ensure that a variety of perspectives are intentionally included, especially the voices of those most directly impacted by the work.

Rad Resource

To help ground this work, I often use an interactive evaluation tool, the Eval Matrix© developed in partnership with Katrina Bledsoe and Felisa Gonzales. This tool describes seven culturally responsive and equity-focused evaluation philosophies as well as the key principles shared across these approaches.

Hot Tip #1: Be clear on the values and principles guiding the evaluation

I find it helpful to identify the values and principles central to evaluation projects to ensure the team is accountable to these principles. The Eval Matrix highlights the following seven key principles shared across culturally responsive and equity-focused evaluations. Which key principles do you incorporate into your work?

• Promotion of equity and social justice; attention to issues of power
• Engagement of partners and community members, particularly those with less social power, during all phases of the evaluation
• Composition of evaluation team and reflection on assumptions and biases
• Consideration of cultural and historical contexts and different worldviews
• Intentional methods and thoughtful data collection
• Intentional analysis and inclusive interpretation
• Accessible and actionable evaluation findings

Hot Tip #2: Identify your primary area of focus to

Understanding where change is expected in the evaluation helps focus evaluation activities.  The matrix helps evaluators identify the primary level of change.

Individual Level: Emphasizes diversity, inclusion, and cultural competence

• Evaluation activities consider diversity and inclusion of individual team members, including engaging those most impacted by the program.

Interpersonal Level: Emphasizes the use of equitable processes

• Evaluation activities emphasize equitable processes such as attention to power dynamics and inclusion of those most impacted.

Structural Level: Focuses on equitable outcomes

• Evaluation activities address structural factors including historical and cultural context, use of disaggregated data, and promoting equitable outcomes.

Hot Tip #3: Identify the evaluation approach best suited for your project

By identifying the key principles and focus areas of the evaluation, it becomes easier to identify the most appropriate evaluation approach, such as:

• Culturally Competent Evaluation: Leading with self-reflection and cultural competence
• Culturally Responsive Evaluation: Centering culture in evaluations by including community members and evaluators with direct lived experience
• Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation: Aiming for equity through culturally responsive approaches
• Culturally Responsive Indigenous Evaluation: Striving for sovereignty and self-determination
• Empowerment Evaluation: Empowering communities with tools used for self-determination
• Equity-focused Evaluations: Conceptualizing, conducting, and using evaluation in service of equity
• Transformative Evaluation: Fighting for human rights and social justice using mixed methods

Rad Resources

• Bledsoe, K., Gonzales, F., & Guillen-Woods, B*. (2022). The Eval Matrix. Strategic Learning Partners for Innovation https://slp4i.com/the-eval-matrix.
• Aponte-Soto, L., Casillas, W., Ali, A., Maldonado, S. I., & López-Cevallos, D. F. (Eds.). (2024). Perspectives on practicing culturally responsive and equitable evaluation with Latina/o/e communities [Special issue]. New Directions for Evaluation, 2024(181). Wiley Online Library
• Adedoyin, A. C., Amutah-Onukagha, N. N., & Jones, C. D. (Eds.). (2023). Culturally responsive and equitable evaluation: Visions and voices of emerging scholars. Cognella Academic Publishing.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from LaRED Topical Interest Group 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.

I’m Dr. Emely Medina-Rodriguez, an evaluator and researcher who is passionate about making evaluation more meaningful, inclusive, and useful. Throughout my career, I’ve been especially interested in creating spaces where people, particularly young people and communities whose voices are often overlooked, can share their experiences in ways that feel authentic to them. I enjoy finding creative ways to make research more engaging and accessible by listening, building trust, sharing power, and creating opportunities for people to shape the questions and conversations that matter to them. 

Have you ever wondered how to meaningfully engage youth in sharing their ideas and experiences with you and your team? I have been thinking about this question for more than a decade. Over time, I have learned that meaningful engagement often begins when we are willing to invert the power dynamics to let youth lead rather than impose structures they may not recognize or feel comfortable navigating, such as traditional focus group protocols.

For many young people, particularly Black and Brown youth, an evaluator can represent an authority figure who may not immediately inspire trust. This reality is connected to the historically extractive practices of our field, as well as ideologies such as adultism and paternalism. There is an inherent power imbalance between adults and young people, and good intentions alone are not always enough to bridge that gap. To begin balancing the scales, we must draw on the principles of Paulo Freire’s liberatory education and meet young people where they are in their language, experiences, interests, and ways of understanding the topic we want to explore.

Hot Tip

One approach I have found especially useful is the use of gamified and art-based focus groups. These methods make the research environment more familiar by incorporating easy-to-follow games and opportunities for creative expression. Games can invite movement and full-body engagement, while art allows youth to communicate ideas that may be difficult to express through conventional questions and answers. Together, these approaches can help young people feel more comfortable, more in control, and more invested in the process.

Grounded in youth participatory action research practices, gamified and art-based methods can be adapted to the age, needs, interests, and circumstances of each group. They can also be translated into virtual settings when necessary. However, creativity does not mean a lack of structure. These approaches require additional preparation, resources, and support, as well as careful alignment between research questions and the activities used to explore them.

Lesson Learned

Time has taught me that intentionality is essential. We must be thoughtful about how we design each session so that we do not waste the opportunity or the trust that young people have offered us. Activities should be simple, accessible, and easy to follow. Maintaining energy and motivation throughout the session is equally important because youth notice and respond to the energy we bring into the room.

At times, gamified or art-based focus groups may appear too unconventional to be taken seriously. Yet rigor and creativity are not opposites. Each focus group should have a clear purpose and intended outcome aligned with the evaluation’s logic model and research questions. This means understanding the type, quality, and quantity of data needed and developing a framework to guide both the activities and analysis.

Most importantly, youth should have a voice in determining how they participate. Through conversation, listening, and following their advice, we can select activities that reflect their preferences and comfort. The goal is not simply to make research more engaging or fun. It is to create an evaluation process that is intentional, rigorous, and grounded in respect for young people as experts in their own lives.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from LaRED Topical Interest Group 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.

I’ve worked with inspiring Latine/a/o organizers in Los Angeles and Santa Ana who show me that real change takes a village, consistent effort, and shared stories. Funding is important, too. My favorite part of this work is creating an environment where people feel safe and seen, so they’re comfortable sharing their stories, even among strangers. These stories shape the themes that guide our reports and future work.

I take this extremely seriously, especially when working with intergenerational, diverse, and non-English speakers. It’s important to think not only about the day of facilitation, but also from the start of the invitation through to after the events end. One of the clients I worked with requested a non-traditional focus group, which I appreciated. Instead of a traditional focus group, I developed a facilitation guide that emphasized having a good time while engaging in community conversations. I did this through using popular education techniques.

I created a game called “Roll with Resilience” that used a deck of cards featuring local places and inflatable jumbo dice. Participants rolled the dice, received a disaster scenario, and shared if they had experienced something similar. If not, they discussed what they would do and what resources they wished were available in their community. The cards, spread out on the table or floor, represented places people currently use or would want access to during a disaster. We played mainly in Spanish. As people played, they opened up about their real-life experiences, having fun while also engaging in meaningful conversations.

Hot Tips

1. Start the sessions with connection, as Priya Parker says don’t start with logistics. In popular education, a dinamica (group movement activity) is a great way to begin and break bread together.
2. From the invitation, I wish I had designed the flyer with “Get to meet your neighbors and play some games together! Gift card prizes will be shared with everyone who shows up” because that is ultimately what we did: we played games and had a good time!
3. Card sorting is one of my favorite activities to include when designing with international residents.
4. I test most of my ideas with my mother first, since she reflects the communities I work with. Her feedback helps me refine my approaches and better understand my audience. I’ve learned so much from her, and I encourage you to seek advice from people you trust in your own circle.
5. Remember, if you worked with one community, you have worked with one community. So get to know the people first and see if this approach works for you!

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from LaRED Topical Interest Group 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.

Restorative leadership is a relational, justice-centered approach rooted in restorative justice (Hernandez, A.E., 2025). It emphasizes relational accountability, healing-centered engagement, “power with” rather than “power over,” and a cyclical disposition of caring, knowing, and doing (Hernandez, A.E., 2026; Zehr, 2015). It is increasingly visible in community-based and community power initiatives, yet it remains under-specified as theory. That under-specification is both an evaluation problem and an evaluation opportunity, one that CREE is uniquely positioned to address in two ways.

Restorative Leadership as Evaluand. CREE insists that culture is central, not incidental to theory specification (Hood et al., 2015). Evaluating CREE-based initiatives without culturally grounding their constructs risks measuring a decontextualized abstraction. For example, in Latino/a – Hispanic communities, the theory’s core constructs find culturally specific expression, e.g.: relational accountability lives in confianza (trust earned through sustained presence) and personalismo (relationship as the precondition for legitimate action); collective identity resonates with familismo (selfhood bound to communal wellbeing); healing-centered truth-telling parallels testimonio (narrative as knowledge, witness, and repair), etc. These constructs are not translations of the theory; they are theory-constitutive. Specification should therefore proceed with the community rather than merely about it: co-defining constructs, validating indicators against community meaning, and treating cultural knowledge as evidence rather than context.

The Evaluator as Restorative Leader. The same caring–knowing–doing cycle (Hernandez, 2026) describes an evaluative stance consistent with CREE commitments to cultural competence (American Evaluation Association, 2011). Caring is relational accountability to the community, not solely to the contract. Knowing is epistemic humility: learning history, language, and power from community members as co-creators of knowledge. Doing is participatory, healing-aware practice: dialogue circles, shared sense-making, and findings returned in forms the community can use to build its own agency. Evaluating this way, our practice itself becomes an instance of the theory we are specifying – a reflexive loop in which evaluation both tests and develops restorative, community leadership.

Hot Tips

• Co-specify constructs biculturally and bilingually. For example, before operationalizing, ask community partners how confianza, personalismo, familismo, or testimonio express (or complicate) each construct, then let their answers revise the theory.
• Treat cultural constructs as theory-constitutive, not as moderators. They belong in the program theory itself, not in a limitations paragraph.
• Evaluate the “how,” not only outcomes. Power-sharing, repair after harm, and voice are criteria of merit, not process footnotes.
• Use restorative practices as method. Circles and dialogue can serve simultaneously as data collection, member-checking, and relationship repair.
• Document theory development. Each culturally grounded specification is a scholarly contribution; report it so the field’s theory grows with the community’s wisdom. 

Lesson Learned

Communities do not need evaluators to validate their leadership, culture, practice, or performance; they need evaluators willing to be led, to care enough to stay, know enough to act justly, and do the work with, not for, the people whose futures are at stake.

Rad Resources

• American Evaluation Association. (2011). American Evaluation Association public statement on cultural competence in evaluation. https://www.eval.org/About/Competencies-Standards/Cultural-Competence-Statement
• Hernandez, A. E. (2025, December). Healing and Justice: The Communal Regeneration Framework. Root Change. https://rootchange.org/2026/01/12/from-the-community-power-studio-knowledge-products-in-practice/
• Hernandez, A.E. (2026). Caring, Knowing, and Doing: The Disposition and Identity of Community Power Leaders. Chapter in Olgechi E. and Hernandez, A.E. The Ultimate Guide to Community Power.  (Publisher Pending).
• Hood, S., Hopson, R. K., & Frierson, H. T. (Eds.). (2015). Continuing the journey to reposition culture and cultural context in evaluation theory and practice. Information Age Publishing.
• Zehr, H. (2015). The little book of restorative justice: Revised and updated. Good Books.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from LaRED Topical Interest Group 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.

I’m Noemi Avalos, Senior Evaluation Officer at Sierra Health Foundation (a private health conversion foundation) and The Center (a nonprofit organization). I am a proud immigrant from Mexico and daughter of hardworking parents who worked in various agricultural fields and showed me the value of la familia (family). In this role, I lead monitoring, technical assistance, learning, and evaluation efforts in partnership with program teams, funders, and external consultants; these efforts aim to generate useful information that supports decision-making for our staff, funders, and the organizations we invest in or funded partners (grantees). 

Most of our funded partners are community-based organizations serving nuestras comunidades (communities of color); they operate with reduced budgets and limited capacity for monitoring and evaluation. Because culturally responsive and equitable learning and evaluation require funded partners’ perspectives to shape the work and benefit from it, this post shares tips for meaningfully engaging partners in these efforts.

Hot Tips

Lessons Learned

• Usually, it is not practical to engage funded partners at every stage of the evaluation process; therefore, it is important to identify where we can prioritize their involvement. 

• While the use of evaluation frameworks and terminology can be useful for evaluators, it can create confusion for funded partners or other key interest holders like program staff. Thus, it is important to spend time clarifying fuzzy language, evaluation concepts, and processes and to integrate palabras culturales (cultural terms) that might bring concepts to life.

• Being relational rather than transactional goes a long way in building confianza (trust) with funded partners. For example, making time to attend site visits or convenings to learn about their work and listen to their stories. 

• Promoting equity means advocating for funded partners if needed; this can look like supporting program teams in negotiating burdensome or unrealistic reporting requirements with funders. 

Rad Resources

Below are some resources that might be helpful:

• Centering Grantees With Reporting Alternatives – PEAK Grantmaking
• Embedding an Equity Focus in Evaluation
• Is my Evaluation Practice Culturally Responsive?

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from LaRED Topical Interest Group 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, I’m David Howard, principal at DBH Consulting, a small firm partnering with nonprofits, foundations, and public agencies to strengthen how they use data, measure impact, and make strategic decisions. I am also an unabashed logic model enthusiast. Over two decades working in homeless services, child welfare, criminal justice, and workforce development, I’ve helped build or review more logic models than I can count — and have used them to teach dozens of graduate courses and train hundreds of practitioners. Here are a few Hot Tips I often share, plus one (free) Rad Resource I recently created and a couple more I have leaned on.

Hot Tip #1: Start at the end.

When practitioners begin with inputs, they usually end up describing the program they already have rather than the one they intend. My sessions go better when the group first names a small number of long-term outcomes (“What does success look like in five years?”) and works backward through intermediate outcomes, short-term outcomes, outputs, and finally activities and inputs. Starting from the end also surfaces where activities don’t clearly connect to outcomes — often the most important thing to fix.

Hot Tip #2: When choosing indicators, look to the field.

Every federal human services funding stream has a reporting framework you’re likely already pulling data for — HMIS for homelessness, CFSR items for child welfare, BJA PMT for criminal justice, WIOA reporting for workforce development. When your logic model outputs and outcomes map to those frameworks, evaluation planning gets much easier because you’re measuring what you already have to track. Even if you’re not receiving federal funding, those field-level indicators can be a solid starting point.

Hot Tip #3: Be careful not to confuse outputs and outcomes.

This is the most common mix-up I see. Outputs are countable products of your program (e.g., # of participants served, # of case-management contacts, etc.). Outcomes reflect the changes those outputs make possible (e.g., increased service engagement, increased housing stability, etc.). A logic model focusing heavily on outputs shows you do a lot of work. A logic model with clear outcomes shows the results of that work.

Hot Tip #4: Don’t overdo it.

A logic model that spills to two pages is usually one that hasn’t decided what matters most. Limiting yourself to one page — even at the drafting stage — requires constructive prioritization, ultimately producing a more digestible program design articulation for staff, leadership, funders, or other stakeholders.

Rad Resource: A free web-based logic model builder.

I built a free guided web tool that walks users through the core logic model components with sector-specific content for homeless services, child welfare, criminal justice, workforce development, and general human services. Every suggestion is drawn from the federal reporting frameworks above — 1,900+ across five sectors. The tool is especially designed for students and newer practitioners who are just getting started on their logic model journeys. It’s a work in progress and feedback from AEA members is welcome!

More Rad Resources.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation Logic Model Development Guide is still the go-to resource. Much of my teaching and training has relied on Kellogg’s work. And the CDC has built a Logic Model Library Guide that situates the logic model within a broader evaluation approach (largely focused on public health) — useful when a stakeholder asks, “why start with a logic model at all?”

What Hot Tips have I missed? I’d love to hear yours in the comments.

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post 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.