By Laura Pinsoneault, Bridgid Chanen and Kristen Gardner-Volle
It’s hard to believe we started Evaluation Plus 5 years ago. In that time, we’ve been able to learn, grow, and help make change possible, to improve the lives of young people, people impacted by cancer, elder LGBTQ persons and others. On this anniversary, we want to appreciate all the partners, experiences, and ways we have contributed impact that has made our work special to us.
In establishing Evaluation Plus, here are the top 5 things we couldn’t do without:
Relationships
Genuine and meaningful connections make our approach at E+ unique. We love getting to know the people we work with, not just their organization or their project. No matter how big or small the project, it is worth the time and energy for us to build lasting relationships centered around a desire for meaningful impact. Getting to know our partners and letting our partners get to know us, not just as project partners but as people, is at the forefront of everything we do.
We appreciate you and we look forward to more and deepening genuine connections in the years ahead.
Learning
As evaluators, learning is at the heart of what we do. We want our partners to grow their love and capacity of evaluation and the confidence to sustain their impact long after we’ve left the table. For us, this means constantly growing our knowledge about developmental evaluation so we can innovate. It also means learning from you about your field, your approach, and what you value.
We are grateful that you have allowed us to learn alongside you. What we have learned from you has helped us innovate our evaluation practice and add new change-making tools to our repertoire. It’s also enabled us to better support other partners as they make their impact on the world. Together we are having a positive ripple effect.
Expanding Impact
One of the most exciting things about our work is that it takes us to a variety of places. In the past 5 years, we have been fortunate to work with new sectors, new issues and even new geographies. We are working with problem solvers and changemakers from health equity, LGBTQIA+ rights, women’s rights, justice, child abuse and neglect, and more. We are proud to contribute to national and global impacts that push the status quo alongside the diversity of the world that reflects the best of humanity.
Growth
It’s been incredible to see E+ grow over the last 5 years. Some of this growth comes from the learning, innovation, and new impact areas we touched on earlier. Other elements of this growth are more tangible. E+ has expanded to build a core team of three strong female leaders from different generations and with different skills and interests. We have also found many great collaborators to help us support our partners when a project is bigger than we can manage alone or needs different skills. We pushed ourselves outside of our comfort zone to give E+ a voice. We’ve started a blog and podcast so we can disseminate our learning and make evaluation accessible. We are excited to see where this growth takes us and what impact we can create with increased capacity in the years ahead.
Reconnecting
Going back to our theme of lasting connections, we find great joy in getting to reconnect with our strategy partners and colleagues from past projects and careers as they have taken on new roles or expanded into their own businesses. When we say let’s stay connected, we mean it! We can’t wait for the next opportunity to work together again.
Thank you for the last 5 years and here’s to many more! We can change the world, but we cannot do it alone.
