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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...

Key Points • The authors identified four archetypes describing philanthropic funders’ approach to AI: The Curious, The Doers, The Dreamers, The Skeptics. • The authors did not find major differences across foundations based on their geographic location, though there were differences found based on their mission and values. Feminist and social justice funders in the Global South demonstrated more skepticism than others. • Even in seemingly benign or straightforward applications, AI systems...

There is philanthropic investing, and there is commercial investing, and there is nothing in between.

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...

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

With growing evidence of what works in education, governments and their partners strive towards scale. While implementation research to adapt solutions holds promise for testing what works, where and for whom, its use in education is limited. Sixty-three international education stakeholders from government, academia, think tanks, local and international non-governmental organizations, multi- and bi-laterals and foundations offer insight into three modes of implementation research that differ...

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...

This article assesses the application of the problem driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) approach to public financial management reform in six African countries. It draws on primary data collected using a mix of interviews, overt participation observations and a short survey. PDIA responds to shortcomings in orthodox approaches to reform and technical assistance in developing countries. It stresses local solutions to local problems, achieved through experimentation and adaptation. The...

Responses to sustainability challenges are not delivering results at the scale and speed called for by science, international agreements, and concerned citizens. Yet there is a tendency to underestimate the large-scale impacts of small-scale, local, and contextualized actions, and particularly the role of individuals in scaling transformations. Here, we explore a fractal approach to scaling sustainability transformations based on “universal values.” Universal values are proposed as intrinsic...

The idea that technologies can change moral beliefs and practices is an old one. But how, exactly, does this happen? This paper builds on an emerging field of inquiry by developing a synoptic taxonomy of the mechanisms of techno-moral change. It argues that technology affects moral beliefs and practices in three main domains: decisional (how we make morally loaded decisions), relational (how we relate to others) and perceptual (how we perceive situations). It argues that across these three...

Participatory action research (PAR) is an approach to research that prioritizes the value of experiential knowledge for tackling problems caused by unequal and harmful social systems, and for envisioning and implementing alternatives. PAR involves the participation and leadership of those people experiencing issues, who take action to produce emancipatory social change, through conducting systematic research to generate new knowledge. This Primer sets out key considerations for the design of...

Achieving impact through research for development programmes (R4D) requires engagement with diverse stakeholders across the research, development and policy divides. Understanding how such programmes support the emergence of outcomes, therefore, requires a focus on the relational aspects of engagement and collaboration. Increasingly, evaluation of large research collaborations is employing social network analysis (SNA), making use of its relational view of causation. In this paper, we use...

Large publicly funded programmes of research continue to receive increased investment as interventions aiming to produce impact for the world’s poorest and most marginalized populations. At this intersection of research and development, research is expected to contribute to complex processes of societal change. Embracing a co-produced view of impact as emerging along uncertain causal pathways often without predefined outcomes calls for innovation in the use of complexity-aware approaches to...