innovationnet

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. Before the pandemic, Innovation Network partnered with Community Change to document the community organizing models of the nine local grassroots organizations in their Power in Places initiative. One common feature of the organizations (nine grassroots groups across eight states) we worked with is […]

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. This blog post is part of a series of posts about Innovation Network’s transformation towards equity. “Innovation is progress in the face of tradition” — Divad @ThereBeKulture Over the last few years Innovation Network has undergone significant changes that sought to incorporate developments into our organizational […]

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. Photo by Dom J This blog post is part of a series of posts about Innovation Network’s transformation towards equity. The work of equity starts with our own internal work, and by now you have read about our transformation towards equity and new values that […]

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash As I transition out of my role as Director of Innovation Network, I’ve been in deep reflection about how the last 20 years shaped and sharpened my own approaches to learning and evaluation, as well as those of […]

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. This blog post was originally published in AEA365 during the Advocacy and Policy Change week in March 2021 Over the past year, we have all witnessed the power and promise of grassroots-led change as popular movements and organized communities have galvanized widespread support for […]

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. This post first appeared in the Luminaire Group monthly newsletter, Be Lumin-Us in August 2019. Twelve years ago, when I began training as a community organizer in New England, I heard the following saying: “You only get as much justice as you have the […]

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. Data Placemats & Emergent Learning Tables: Tools to Meaningfully Engage Diverse Perspectives in Evaluation Sensemaking Image created by Veena Pankaj, Innovation Network In an earlier post that highlights Reflections on the Intersection of Evaluation and Emergent Learning, I shared insights generated through my […]

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. By Johanna Morariu Advocacy ecosystems are a community of interacting individuals and organizations. They unite around a shared purpose of influencing policies and practices of institutions. A quote attributed to Helen Keller, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much,” […]

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. How I applied emergent learning tools to connect evaluation, learning, and strategy Photo by PhotoMIX Company from Pexels All too often evaluation, learning, and strategy are disconnected. How many times have you been involved in an evaluation that’s meticulously collecting data to answer questions that […]

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. The resources designed to help us adapt to Covid-19 don’t match up with our lives right now. Every day, I sit down at my kitchen table — the same table where I (used to) host dinners and put together puzzles — in front of a make-shift workstation […]