What Makes Evaluating Complexity Different?
12:00pm to 1:00pm Eastern Time
More organizations are reorienting their strategies toward systems change in recognition of the complexity of the problems they are trying to address. As a result, the traditional ways that philanthropy, government, corporations, and nonprofits have approached evaluation are falling short. It begs the question:
How can the practice of evaluation evolve to better reflect the complexity of social problems and their solutions today?
In the recently published practice brief, Evaluating Complexity, FSG's Hallie Preskill and Srik Gopal describe how evaluating complex initiatives in complex environments is inherently different than how evaluation has traditionally been practiced and defined. They outline nine propositions for evaluating complexity building on the ideas and thinking of leading theorists and evaluation practitioners:
- Design and implement evaluations to be adaptive, flexible, and iterative
- Seek to understand and describe the whole system, including components and connections
- Support the learning capacity of the system by strengthening feedback loops and improving access to information
- Pay particular attention to context and be responsive to changes as they occur
- Look for effective principles of practice in action, rather than assessing adherence to a predetermined set of activities
- Identify points of energy and influence, as well as ways in which momentum and power flow within the system
- Focus on the nature of relationships and interdependencies within the system
- Explain the non-linear and multi-directional relationships between the initiative and its intended and unintended outcomes
- Watch for patterns, both one-off and repeating, at different levels of the system
Join FSG's Hallie Preskill, Srik Gopal, and Katelyn Mack in conversation with Cris Kutzli, program director at Grand Rapids Community Foundation, and Mona Jhawar, evaluation manager at The California Endowment, to discuss the nine propositions from the recent practice brief, Evaluating Complexity, and learn more about how these funders of social innovation have put these propositions into practice.
This interactive discussion will explore what has made the design and implementation of evaluation different because of the complex environment in which these funders are working. Each foundation will provide an example of how they have evaluated complex initiatives seeking to address complex problems on the issues of urban education and community health.
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Panelists
Hallie Preskill, managing director at FSG, has provided evaluation, organizational learning, and training workshops and services for healthcare, nonprofit, education, foundation, government, and corporate organizations for more than 25 years. As the head of FSG's Strategic Evaluation approach area, Hallie guides clients on planning and conducting evaluations, developing strategic learning and evaluation systems, building shared measurement systems, building evaluation capacity, and facilitating organizational learning over a wide range of topic areas, including healthcare, economic development, youth and education, substance abuse prevention and treatment, community engagement, and human rights. Prior to joining FSG in 2009, Hallie held academic positions at three different universities, where she taught courses in program evaluation, organizational learning, appreciative inquiry, consulting, and training. She received the American Evaluation Association's Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award for Outstanding Professional Practice in 2002 and the University of Illinois Distinguished Alumni Award in 2004. In 2007, she served as President of the American Evaluation Association.
Srik Gopal is a Director who co-leads FSG's Strategic Learning and Evaluation practice. In this role, Srik has worked with a variety of clients including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, National Academies - Institute of Medicine, and the Grand Rapids Community Foundation. He also led FSG's "next generation evaluation" initiative. Srik came to FSG in 2012 with over twelve years of leadership experience in the social and business sectors. Most recently, in his role as Chief Impact and Learning Officer at New Teacher Center, Srik worked to set up frameworks for impact measurement as well as systems and processes for data-driven learning and improvement. Srik holds an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross Business School and has completed a Certification in Advanced Evaluation Study from Claremont Graduate University. He has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.
Katelyn Mack contributes to FSG's Strategic Learning and Evaluation practice through the design and implementation of innovative approaches to evaluation in the philanthropic sector. While Katelyn conducts evaluations across issue areas, she has deep expertise in US health, working with clients that include the Ford Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and The California Endowment. She has been involved in evaluating a 5-year, $24 million initiative by the Knight Foundation to support the development of information and media projects in communities across the United States, and has helped numerous foundations develop comprehensive strategies for increasing the effectiveness of learning and evaluation within their organizations. Prior to FSG, Katelyn worked as an analyst on social and economic issues affecting women and families with the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and evaluated health promotion programs in Mexico and Central America. Katelyn holds a Master's degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Cris Kutzli is a Program Director at Grand Rapids Community Foundation, and serves as Co-Director of the Challenge Scholars initiative. She participated in the design of Challenge Scholars, and now leads its program and evaluation components. Her work with Challenge Scholars includes program planning, strategy development, and partnership building at both the systems and grass-roots level. Cris also advises the Community Foundation's Youth Grant Committee. She is involved in a number of local initiatives related to education, youth development, and college access. Prior to joining the Foundation in 1999, Cris served as a community organizer at a large neighborhood association in Grand Rapids. Cris earned her Bachelor of Arts in Social Science Education at Michigan State University.
Mona Jhawar, who has extensive experience as a health policy researcher and analyst, joined The Endowment in February 2008. As a learning and evaluation officer for the foundation, Mona is responsible for working with the foundation's program staff, grantees and external consultants on evaluation design and planning. In addition, she is responsible for overseeing and communicating learning and evaluation activities in support of organizational learning and the achievement of impact, among other duties.
Prior to her appointment with The Endowment, Jhawar served as a policy analyst for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health where she was involved with grant-making processes for local built environment projects. Mona has led a number of workshops at the national and regional levels, and has been a published researcher for the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. She has also been published in the American Journal of Public Health. Mona earned her B.S. in Environmental Toxicology from the University of California, Davis, and her M.P.H. from UCLA.
Christi Electris, Croatan Institute
Carlos Pinto Lobo, MaRS Centre for Impact Investing
Bruno Jean, a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Rural Development at L'Université du Québec à Rimouski. He was the first Scientific Director of the inter-university research group at the Centre de Recherche sur le Développement Territorial. His areas of specialization and research include the New Rural Economy, rurality, rural development of marginalized regions, family farming, rural policy, and rural governance. He contributed to the OECD Quebec rural policy review and published a paper in a recent OECD book on rural innovation. See: OECD, Innovation and Modernising the Rural Economy, 2014: 
