Presenters:
Jane Reisman and
Veronica Olazabal
Description:
Did you know that each year, private sector, impact
investing, and other social finance actors drive $12 Trillion toward social and
environmental benefit yet, aren’t beholden to the same levels of accountability as the public sector?
With the rapid growth of these investments over the last decade, the risk of
impact washing, green washing and rainbow washing is a real challenge to
meeting the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
It is clear today that the business of doing good is
no longer limited to the public sector. How can the
evaluator toolkit and mindset support accountability and transparency across
these stakeholders? What are applicable and relevant methodological approaches
that can be deployed to measure, manage and validate social and environmental
benefits as well as contribute to managing the risk of harm? What are the
critical questions that need to be asked to ensure that results drive equitable
outcomes?
During this course,
we will address these questions while exploring both the demand and supply side
of generating evidence, validating results, and promoting use of data in
decision making in this new area. We will also learn practical M&E skills
that can be applied and/or tailored to meet the needs of these newer
stakeholders. Finally, we will ground-truth concepts and theories through
discussions with experts and practitioners, highlighting the challenges and
opportunities in measurement and evaluation for sustainable and responsible
investment.
Learning Outcomes:
●To learn about best practices,
norms and key features in impact measurement and evaluation for social finance investors, and under what
conditions different approaches apply.
●To develop the critical
skills needed to ensure evaluators are able to navigate, negotiate and
facilitate their way through this new segment of the evaluation market.
●To clarify the distinct
needs of these new stakeholders and where impact measurement and management
(IMM) converge and diverge from the current evaluator toolkit and mindset
This workshop is aligned to AEA’s Competencies as follows:
As we understand
it, these competencies were developed to differentiate professionals engaged in
evaluation practice from other measurement professionals. This question has been surfacing in the
social sector for at least two decades as the public and social sectors adopted
outcome measurement approaches in their funding decisions and established
expectations that social sector programs incorporate logic models/log
frames/theory of change and outcome measurement as part of the grantmaking
process. The transformation of the United
Way of America’s grantmaking approach from partner agencies to program funding
centered around intended outcomes in the mid-nineties serves as a clear case in
point. The United Way of America followed
the advice of evaluation advisors to adopt the language of outcome measurement
rather than evaluation to distinguish their approach from expected standards
for evaluation.
If you roll the
clock forward about fifteen years, we are witnessing a comparable situation in
the case of social finance. As the
measurement approach evolved in the areas of responsible, sustainable and
thematic impact investing, a new language was introduced to account for the
social impact of these investments, namely impact measurement and management
(IMM). Interestingly, evaluation
professionals have engaged in the evolution of IMM methods and have become
keenly aware of how and in what ways evaluation competencies are embedded in
IMM and what ways other measurement professions have been more influential. This
course will highlight how the evaluator toolkit and mindset are relevant to
IMM. Particular attention will be paid
to the domains of practices, methods and context.
This workshop is aligned to AEA’s Guiding Principles as follows:
AEA’s Guiding
Principles is a powerful driver of the course presenters continued engagement
as field builders in the arena of measurement
and evaluation for sustainable and responsible impact investment. We regularly advocate for systematic inquiry,
upskilling competencies of impact analysts, transparency, respect for people
and authentic stakeholder engagement, and using evaluation and learning to
advance equity. Our course will
highlight the extent to which these principles are squarely embedded in current
IMM norms and conventions and where there is opportunity for improvement.
Who Should Attend?
Any evaluators, impact analysts, an/or impact measurement and
management practitioners interested in getting quickly up to speed on the key
frameworks, methodologies and issues the new world of social finance and impact
investing brings.
Facilitator Experience:
Veronica
Olazabal is
Senior Adviser and Director of Measurement, Evaluation and Organizational
Performance at The Rockefeller Foundation where she brings cutting-edge
strategy, measurement and learning practices to the Foundation’s work. Jane Reisman connects the dots between Impact Measurement and
Management in Impact Investing and the evaluation profession. As the founder and former leader of ORS
Impact , a U.S.-based evaluation and strategy firm, Jane developed a record of
engaging in new frontiers and field building to scale impact.
Dates:
March 10, 2021 1:00-2:30 (EST)
March 17, 2021 1:00-2:30 (EST)
March 24, 2021 1:00-2:30 (EST)
March 31, 2021 1:00-2:30 (EST)
April 7, 2021 1:00-2:30 (EST)
Once you purchase the eStudy you must register for each session. Recordings will be made available to registrants unable to attend sessions live. Recordings will be made available to all registrants for 90 days.