The philanthropic sector is no stranger to headwinds, but the current storm is testing funders’ commitment to equity in ways we’ve never experienced before — and learning and evaluation is at a high-stakes inflection point. Whether foundations choose to reinforce or back away from commitments to equity-centered evaluation now will define the sector for years to come.

Equity-centered evaluation is not a trend to practice when weather conditions are ideal. It is the compass that orients strategy, surfaces what’s working, and keeps communities at the center of what gets measured and why. It’s taken years to build this infrastructure.

With this in mind, over the past year, Engage R+D and Informing Change have partnered with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to engage funders and evaluation practitioners in iterative cycles of learning and reflecting, particularly with respect to the unique challenges now facing the sector.

While funder and practitioner perspectives vary, we’ve witnessed an evolving shift in tone and resolve. Early conversations with funders (documented in this 2025 field brief) were marked by deep and legitimate concern about safety, risks, and tensions between immediate needs and long-term vision. More recently conversations with evaluation practitioners validated those concerns and added to them, but with a determination to leverage this moment, not just survive it. Another generative round of conversations with evaluation practitioners in early 2026 underscored the imperative to strengthen practices and relationships that are more durable and equitable than what existed before.

The headwinds are real, but so is the commitment to moving through them.

Compounding Pressures Reshaping Equity-Centered Evaluation

Pressure to shift language to meet federal mandates is eroding the transparency that makes learning possible. When funders, evaluators, and grantees can’t name what they’re doing, they can’t share what they’re learning. Grantees and evaluators are spending time and resources reframing their work, often in ways that obscure rather than illuminate insights and accomplishments. As a result, the field loses ground it may not recover.

Protecting participant safety is becoming more complex. When working with historically marginalized communities and others facing heightened risk, evaluators are rightly limiting the data they collect, conducting interviews without internet-connected devices, and declining to use AI tools that could create exposure. These are responsible choices, but they come with real trade-offs for representation and the depth of learning that gets captured.

Read the full article about equity-centered evaluation by Maryam Khojasteh, Miranda Yates, Sonia Taddy-Sandino, and Michael Arnold at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.