Impact Evaluation & Learning
When you need to know if it's working.
Not a report for the funder — an honest enough picture to decide what you build toward.
Funders are asking for evidence, and underneath the asking is a harder question you may not be able to answer cleanly: is the work actually doing what you tell funders it does?
Most organizations can describe what they did. Far fewer can say, honestly, what changed because of it.
That gap is where good money goes to the wrong things, and where a funder's confidence quietly erodes.
Does any of this sound familiar?
- "If a funder asked what actually changed, could I answer honestly?"
- "We can describe what we did — but did it work?"
- "Does our impact story still hold up?"
Why this is rare, and why it matters.
There's something odd about the Canadian sector.
Nearly everyone reports, and almost no one evaluates.
"Evaluation" too often means counting outputs for a grant report — activity dressed up as impact. Real impact evaluation — the kind that tells you what to stop, what to double, and what to tell a funder because it's true — is scarce enough here that organizations have had to look outside the country to find it.
That scarcity is exactly why this work matters: an organization that can see itself clearly can decide what to build toward, instead of only describing what it's done.
What the work is.
Helping you see clearly enough to decide. That means:
- Choosing the few measures that actually matter instead of the many that are easy to count.
- Claiming your results as contribution — what the work made possible alongside others — rather than the borrowed credit grantees feel pressured to manufacture.
- Reading the evidence honestly, including where disaggregating it (who's served well, and who isn't) changes the story.
This is contribution-based evaluation, not a scorecard. The output is sight.
Contribution-based evaluation isn't a borrowed import — contribution analysis was originated by the Canadian evaluator John Mayne. And the gap is documented: in the Canadian "On Impact" study, only about one in five believed funders actually use evaluation to improve anything. Most evaluation guards a report; this is built to produce sight.
What you leave with.
- A picture of your impact you actually trust.
- A story you can tell funders that holds up because it's true.
- A short list of decisions — what to keep, what to cut, where the next chapter's focus and resources go — that you can act on now that you can see.
Evaluation done as compliance protects a grant report.
Evaluation done as sight protects the mission.
"She speaks truth to power — and in a way that's genuinely compelling."
Questions leaders ask first
What's the difference between evaluation and reporting?
Reporting counts outputs — what you did. Evaluation asks what changed because of it. One proves activity; the other produces sight you can act on.
What is contribution-based evaluation?
An honest account of what your work made possible alongside other factors — claimed as contribution, not borrowed credit.
Why is real evaluation hard to find in Canada?
For years, "evaluation" in the sector has mostly meant counting outputs for a grant report. The deeper kind — an honest read of what actually changed — has been scarce enough in Canada that organizations have had to look outside the country to find it. That gap is part of why this work exists.
Will this satisfy our funders — or change what we tell them?
Both, honestly. You'll have a story that holds up because it's true — including where the work isn't landing — which builds more trust than triumphs alone.