Over the last decade, philanthropy has undergone a sea change. As foundations increasingly acknowledge the centuries of systematic and institutional racism that have led to intergenerational trauma, cycles of poverty, and reduced life expectancies in communities of color, they are working to re-examine philanthropy’s history and reimagine its role. Under the banner of “trust-based philanthropy,” they are striving to redistribute power and resources and embrace self-critical learning, adopting a more holistic approach to problem definition, embracing multi-faceted solutions over a longer time horizon.

The field of philanthropic evaluation is no exception. As evaluation officers, we are interrogating our own beliefs and training. We are questioning the practices of evaluation and research that communities of color have long distrusted and taking up the challenge to experiment with new mindsets, equity-focused evaluation frameworks, and new definitions of accountability that can support the building of power in marginalized communities.

In 2017, the Equitable Evaluation Initiative (EEI) began to push the field of philanthropic evaluation to align our work with the same principles of inclusion and social justice that underlie equity-focused grantmaking. The “Equitable Evaluation Framework” holds that all evaluation work should advance progress toward equity. But adhering to this principle is not straightforward. As the Equitable Evaluation Initiative points out, evaluation practices in philanthropy are grounded in “orthodoxies,” unquestioned ways of thinking that support the structures and practices maintaining inequality. As the very first step in transforming their approaches to evaluation, foundations must therefore question both these tightly-held beliefs about philanthropy and the top-down orientation that underlies them.

As this rethinking process has unfolded, several sticking points and tensions have surfaced around how evaluation officers can advance equity while embracing complexity. This has been difficult because of traditional notions of objectivity, rigor, and validity. As we have been grappling with these questions, The California Endowment (TCE) concluded that our learning and evaluation work cannot and should not be separated from our work to advance health and racial equity through power building. As the Learning and Evaluation team at TCE has explored what it means to practice trust-based philanthropy, we have redefined our relationships with nonprofits and communities as “partnerships,” to take a first step in correcting the power imbalance that has existed historically between funders and grantees. Further, we have an obligation to use the knowledge that we uncover to influence and organize philanthropy to support effective strategies and solutions created by organizers and those most impacted by inequities.

Read the full article about evaluation and power building strategies by Hanh Cao Yu at Stanford Social Innovation Review.