Oh MY! It’s the Year of the Tiger.
We leapt into 2022 without enough of a pause - grateful that the lunar new year offers a second chance. Watch this space for some of our team’s reflections. We’re bringing so many fun ideas, lessons, and partnerships into this new year:
We’re mulling over juicy questions around equitable grantmaking and meaningful community engagement through process evaluations with our grantmaking partners. Eg, How do you balance equitable participation, power sharing in decision making, and participant burnout?
We’re expanding our application of systems thinking and mapping tools to support our partners in designing and evaluating systems change. We're exploring the use of rich picturing, landscape diagramming, and adaptive action (HSD institute), as well as FSG's Waters of Systems Change model.
We continue to consider social system mapping as an alternative (or a complement?) to social network analysis. More than ever, our coalition partners want to understand the sum of their collective efforts and what latent energy lies in the in-between connections. How can the process of mapping serve to reveal and release that energy?
As for our team, in 2021, we:
Grew our team from two -> five brilliant souls. We have plans to grow just a tad more this year. See Our Team for new opportunities or apply to join our contractor roster.
Deepened our partnership with FemFinance in supporting strategy and evaluation of programs that promote credit building, financial inclusion, and sustainable livelihoods with an equity focus.
Developed a 3-year strategic plan for the firm and nailed down the principles by which we fly (more to come on that soon).
Set aside team time for reflective practice. We mapped our biases, learned tools to advance data equity, created a beautiful collage of our data equity lineage, and explored gender using adaptations of a live action role-playing game…to name a few!
Finally, we used thousands of virtual sticky notes (hello Miro!) and pondered Post-it’s choice of color combinations (Miami fan here; second choice: Bora Bora).
We’re heavily invested in helping to grow & connect the evaluation community in Greater Boston - and invite you to reach out to join us in conversation and collaboration this year through GBEN, MXM, AEA, or somewhere else! We’re so grateful to be working alongside such brilliant, dedicated, and thoughtful colleagues and look forward to an exciting year ahead.
