September 2025

By Nancy Vang, ETB Project Manager

As we continue to navigate the current state of the world and its impact on our work at Expanding the Bench® (ETB), we affirm our commitment to supporting Indigenous, racially, and ethnically diverse evaluators. We recognize that for many evaluators, this has been and continues to be an incredibly challenging year of uncertainty marked by loss and increased risk in funding, work, and staffing. Evaluators have had to continuously pivot as federal actions clash with how we survive and do our work with integrity intact. Earlier this year, the American Evaluation Association polled their members in an impact survey where 79% of respondents reported increased stress and risk from the federal actions, and 59% reported their income had been affected or expected to be affected this year. In the ETB Community Forums, Building a Supportive Evaluation Ecosystem Network (B-SEEN), evaluators expressed the importance of being in community with both evaluators and funders to share and troubleshoot solutions by centering on the intentional development of a supportive evaluation ecosystem. This BSEEN approach, developed by ACE Evaluation Network Member Ryoko Yamaguchi, recognizes that evaluators, funders, partners, and community members all play essential roles in shaping a future where evaluation work can thrive—especially when grounded in equity, care, and a sense of abundance. Together, we explored how positionality, power dynamics, and access to resources affect the resilience of the evaluation ecosystem during times of crisis. 

As we think about where we are now and where the conversation of equity was five years ago, I reflect on Evolving Evaluation: Journeys with Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation, a short-term research project conducted by the ETB Initiative that collected data from January 2021 through December 2022. The purpose of the study was to document trends in the evolution of practitioners’ evaluation approach and practice, gather examples of practitioners’ culturally responsive and equitable evaluation (CREE) practice, particularly during COVID-19, and identify changes needed in the evaluation ecosystem to support more equitable practices. Evaluators in the study shared experiences across the following themes: relationship-building, lived experience, evaluator roles, evolution of practice, evaluation challenges, and organizational equity work. The experiences and reflections of participants highlight both the profound progress and persistent challenges within the field of evaluation as it seeks to continue to embrace CREE as a standard of practice.

Here’s a brief overview of what evaluators shared that still resonates today:  

• Connecting with other evaluators of color (e.g., affinity groups, mentorships, trainings) has been an important source of support.  

• Being in relationship with community, in a way that breaks down power dynamics and acknowledges past harm, is critical to their evaluation work.  

• Evaluators serve multiples roles from facilitator, thought partner, capacity builder, policy maker, to social justice advocate, and change agent. 

• For evaluation practice to advance, evaluators have had to unlearn what they were taught and dismantle early evaluation teachings around concepts of objectivity, validity, and rigor.   

• In spaces shaped by white supremacy, racially and/or ethnically diverse evaluators endure additional challenges such as microaggressions and performative Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. 

• Resistance and healing are essential for those advancing CREE. 

I hope that in elevating the experiences of evaluators, we continue to remember and respond with intention, courage, and care as we shape the evaluation ecosystem particularly in these times.