Power in evaluation is rarely explicit. It lives in the margins of what gets measured, who gets heard, and who holds the risk.
This session explores how power shows up in evaluation work and examines the live, real-world tensions evaluators and programme managers face when balancing institutional and funder demands with authentic community ownership.
Drawing on joint reflections from recent evaluation work with progressive funders and ground-level programme leadership, the session explores three core strands:
Relational Safety vs. Power Vacuums: Why removing formal reporting requirements without transparent expectation-setting can create an unintended "power vacuum"—where grantees still report what they think funders want to hear.
Evaluators as Power Mediators: How evaluators navigate internal institutional power dynamics—such as board risk-aversion, narrative control, and public perception fears—while striving to protect project integrity and community trust.
Shifting Power in Practice (A Programme Manager’s Perspective): Practical reflections from Rory Crawford (Nature Towns & Cities) on what it takes for project leads and NGOs to actively let go of control and hold institutions accountable to community-led decisions.
What You Will Walk Away With
In this session you will learn about hands-on insights and strategies for navigating institutional friction and shifting power in your own practice. This includes:
Language to advocate for relational safety: Concrete arguments and framing you can bring into your next board or funder meeting to explain why removing rules isn't enough without intentional expectation- and boundary-setting.
Field-tested tactics for institutional accountability: Practical strategies for project leads and evaluators trying to challenge rigid reporting expectations from within organizations and alliances.
Exchange with peers: Direct exchange with an international network of practitioners to test ideas, unpack live tensions, and see how others are navigating similar power frictions.
🕒 A Note on Format: This is a 90-minute interactive gathering, but features a natural 60-minute soft exit. If your schedule only allows for an hour, you can drop in for the core input and peer sense-making without missing the primary harvest!
Whether you are an evaluator, funder, or programme manager navigating these dynamics in your daily work, you are wholeheartedly welcome to join us. We look forward to practicing out loud together!
Background about the community & event series
This gathering is part of Experiments in Regenerative Evaluation, a public event series hosted by Unity Effect and the global Regenerative Evaluation Community of Practice—an open network of over 250 practitioners, researchers, and network leaders shifting measurement from extractive compliance toward life-affirming learning. Further events of the series include:
Co-Host Bios
Rory Crawford: Rory has worked in the nature sector for almost 20 years, spanning work on public engagement in his home city of Glasgow to international marine conservation work with the BirdLife International Marine Programme and various other things in between. Having worked on the People’s Plan for Nature, and ‘Nature Neighbourhoods’, he now manages the developing Communities Programme in Nature Towns and Cities, which is on a mission to put communities – and particularly community organisations – at the heart of greener, healthier and more resilient urban neighbourhoods.
Claire Sivier (TIALT): Claire Sivier is a trauma-informed social researcher, facilitator, artist and cultural producer with nearly 20 years’ experience working alongside artists, young people and marginalised communities. As Co-Director of tialt, Claire provides strategic leadership and project direction across complex, multi-partner research and evaluation programmes, ensuring the work is values-led, rigorous, and practically usable across a range of organisational settings.
Jannik Kaiser (Unity Effect): Jannik is the Co-founder and CEO of Unity Effect, leading the development of Regenerative Measurement & Evaluation. He bridges complexity science, human sense-making, and ecosystem weaving to advocate for shifting evaluation from a compliance burden into a life-affirming practice.
