Brian Johnson on the importance of evaluation champions in capacity building
Brian Johnson and colleague Joy Kubarek wrote a blog post for the American Evaluation Association on the importance of evaluation champions in evaluation capacity building. The following is an excerpt from the story.
Greetings! We’re Joy Kubarek and Brian Johnson, Co-founders of Inform Evaluation & Research. Much of our work focuses on building evaluation capacity within informal science and conservation organizations. In recent years, we’ve seen increasing demand for evaluation capacity building (ECB), but organizations don’t always know when they are ready for an ECB initiative or the level of investment (not just monetary!) required. To begin and sustain ECB, we focus on cultivating evaluation champions.
What is an evaluation champion? An evaluation champion is anyone within an organization who understands how an organization benefits from increasing evaluation capacity and who works to build an evaluation culture. While an evaluation champion may already have evaluation knowledge and skills, this isn’t a requirement! No matter their skill level, evaluation champions should be ready to learn and be a vocal cheerleader promoting this work.
