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There is growing engagement with “relational” approaches to community development work - interventions that give practical or even metaphysical primacy to relations and processes over identities and outcomes. But what more can we say about the nature and efficacy of such approaches? CLARISSA SP+ and WorkFREE were two major relational community development intervention and research projects that took place in Bangladesh and India respectively. In this article, I compare the experiences and...

The growing interest in systems-change initiatives sits alongside increasing pressure to demonstrate value for money (VFM), which is challenging for emergent, interconnected and often intangible work. A new way to assess the VFM of systems-change work involves considering the value of changing system conditions and the creation of potential value for future systems transformation. This innovation combines the Water of Systems Change framework with the Cycles of Value Creation to create five...

Amid growing concerns over sustainable development failures, scholars are exploring the ‘regenerative paradigm’ as a pathway for systemic change; yet, its paradigmatic foundations remain underexamined. Using thematic analysis, we analyse the regenerative knowledge field through an integrative review of 320 cross-disciplinary articles on regenerative approaches, synthesising findings into an interactive Regenerative Paradigm Map with 7 principles, 33 themes, and 253 specific elements. We...

Cooke and Kothari argue that the seductive claims of participation often provide cover for shallow and tokenistic development practices that fail to address unequal power relationships. This paper provides a novel mechanism that documents and enables a three-dimensional analysis of (a) who participates (b) at which project stages and (c) at what level of agency and power. No other mechanism was found in the literature for systematically tracing and analysing changes in power relationship...

Despite an emerging body of scholarship on applying generative AI (GenAI) to qualitative data analysis, this area remains underdeveloped. This article evaluates how GenAI can support thematic analysis using a publicly available interview dataset from Lumivero. It introduces Guided AI Thematic Analysis (GAITA), an adaptation of King et al.’s (2018) Template Analysis. This framework positions researchers as a reflexive instrument and intellectual leader while thoroughly guiding GPT-4 in four...

This article presents an artificial intelligence-assisted causal mapping pipeline for gathering and analysing stakeholder perspectives at scale. Evidence relevant to constructing a programme theory, as well as evidence for the causal influences flowing through it, are both collected at the same time, without the evaluator needing to possess a prior theory. The method uses an artificial intelligence interviewer to conduct interviews, automated coding to identify causal claims in the...

Ripple effects mapping is a qualitative and participatory method, developed to capture the dynamic nature and interacting elements of an initiative, and its impacts. We present our experiences of using ripple effects mapping to evaluate complex public health initiatives across seven case studies in Bradford, UK. Seven researchers engaged in qualitative reflective practice to capture their individual experiences of using ripple effects mapping within their research and practice; outlining how...

Be a real advocate for those we’re trying to serve. Be accountable for impact.

The conventional paradigm in political economy routinely treats living, complex, adaptive social systems as machine-like objects. This treatment has driven political economists to oversimplify big, complex social processes using mechanical models, or to ignore them altogether. In development, this has led to theoretical dead ends, trivial agendas, or failed public policies. This article proposes an alternative paradigm: adaptive political economy. It recognizes that social systems are...

Background: The practice and profession of evaluation continue to evolve. Over the years, evaluation scholars and practitioners have developed a broad—and still broadening—range of evaluation approaches. These evaluation approaches are often combined with various study designs in real-world evaluations. To provide an overview of these approaches and designs, and inspired by my son’s love of metro trains, I created an evaluation metro map.    Purpose: The purpose of this article is to...

Background: The Garden of Evaluation Approaches (Montrosse-Moorhead, et al., 2024a) maps evaluation approaches against eight dimensions of practice and situates them in their philosophical orientations and methodological dispositions. Purpose: The Garden’s guiding question is: How do evaluation approaches compare in terms of dimensions that facilitate use and application? Primary intended users are evaluation practitioners, and secondary intended users include ecosystem actors (e.g.,...

Evaluation is a vast field of designs and methods in continuous development. The numerous parameters and choices associated with different methodological options can be difficult to fully understand without deep study and desk review. The motivation for the Periodic Table of Evaluation was to create a one-pager visual that catalogues methodological options and parameters involved in an evaluation design.

Editor’s Note: This article, first published in print and online in 2014, has been republished by The Foundation Review with minor updates. Whether implicit or explicit, social justice and human rights are part of the mission of many philanthropies. Evaluation produced, sponsored, or consumed by these philanthropies that doesn’t pay attention to the imperatives of cultural competency may be inconsistent with their missions. The American Evaluation Association’s Statement on Cultural...

Exploring two systems change mental models in philanthropy [ https://evaluationinnovation.org/publication/systems-mental-models/ ] it is an increasingly shared truth: If we want to tackle society’s worst problems, we must bring a systems lens to our social change efforts. We define “systems change” here as the practice of confronting the causes of social problems rather than treating their symptoms. Many in philanthropy are taking this stance, and are shaping their portfolios, strategies,...

Because trust-based philanthropy shouldn’t mean blind faith.

Background: Ex-post evaluation of sustainability has been done for 40 years in global development. However, it has been done far less than 1% of all global development projects, for there is little proof that “sustainable” development is or is not. Similarly, foreign aid projects are implemented to foster sustainability, but without the benefit of evidence from expost evaluations of what drove it and limited research on the benefits of robust exit strategies. Purpose: Transparency in values...

Realist evaluation and experimental designs are both well-established approaches to evaluation. Over the past 10 years, realist trials—evaluations purposefully combining realist evaluation and experimental designs—have emerged. Informed by a comprehensive review of published realist trials, this article examines to what extent and how realist trials align with quality standards for realist evaluations and randomized controlled trials and to what extent and how the realist and trial aspects...

Evaluators are interested in capturing how things causally influence one another. They are also interested in capturing how stakeholders think things causally i...