ORIGIN STORY
Our co-leaders Carlisle and Hippolyt first met in the mid-2000s when they both worked for Catholic Relief Services. After parting ways for several years, they came together again as evaluation consultants when their small firms, BLE Solutions and the Institute for Peace and Development, started partnering on different evaluation assignments. In sharing their joys and frustrations, they identified a common challenge to their ability to win evaluation contracts and thrive in partnerships with major funding agencies: funding agencies’ procurement and contracting practices were not designed for small firms.
They realized that, if true, it pointed to a significant obstacle for those promoting community-based ownership of change processes. They knew that evaluators who are deeply grounded in the context, community, and culture where change processes are taking place and who are most freely able to share their insights about them are most likely to be found in small and solo evaluation firms. Therefore, if funders and other evaluation commissioners sought to promote community-based ownership of change processes, they needed to adjust their procurement and contracting practices to better partner with small and solo community-based evaluators.
They strongly believed sharing their experiences would mobilize interested parties at both ends - funders and other evaluation commissioners, as well as small and solo community-based evaluation firms - to explore ways to build stronger partnerships that make evaluation outcomes more grounded in the context and views of the people involved in change processes. Hence, they decided to share their experiences and suggestions in an open letter to funders.
They believed that such a letter could lead to more level playing fields and enabling spaces for small and solo community-based evaluators to offer their unique, grounded knowledge and insights and their access to local experts and communities, which could contribute to evaluation outcomes that are contextually relevant and respond to the real issues of populations whom funders seek to serve.
Their Open Letter to Funders, published in October 2023, with support from the Center for Evaluation Innovation, generated considerable interest from funders, other evaluation commissioners, and evaluation firms of all sizes, including small and solo community-based evaluation firms. All found benefits in the issues they raised and practical solutions they proposed in the publication. The enthusiasm the Open Letter geerated encouraged them to seek ways to sustain, expand, and deepen this dialogue. This led them to organize four webinars over the course of 2024 and 2025 that brought together funders from both U.S. and globally-focused foundations and their small or solo community-based evaluation firm partners to share their experiences working together. Their webinars were very well received, with participants attending from all over the globe and representing foundations, bilateral and multilateral organizations, and evaluation firms of all sizes, among others.
Their publication of an article in The Foundation Review in May 2025, creation of working groups of evaluation firms seeking to strengthen their partnerships with each other, conference presentations, and continuing efforts to foster a coalition of funders and initiatives committed to centering small and solo community-based evaluation firms, among other activities, all aim to create spaces for continued dialogue and solution building. They are energized by the resonance of this work and excited to see how it continues to unfold.
They are grateful to two anonymous donors for their support in making these activities possible.