November 2025

By Nancy Vang, ETB Project Manager

The Expanding the Bench® (ETB) team annually aims to meet in person for our strategic retreat during the week of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) conference to reflect on and respond to what we’re observing across our work in the evaluation field. This year, the ETB Team was able to meet for one day in Kansas City, Missouri, taking a pause to be present and consider where we are given the state of the world. We recognize we haven’t been here before, yet the ongoing arguments over the legitimacy of culturally responsive and equitable evaluation (CREE), as well as national funding cuts, continue to be deeply felt.

With a growing team of 14 staff members and the 10-year anniversary of the Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity (LEEAD) program, this retreat offered a meaningful space to ground ourselves in the initiative’s history and determine where we go from here. We intentionally spent time on creative team-building activities to break away from the daily digital formats of whiteboards and virtual meeting culture.

We began by drawing individual journey maps inspired by the “Yellow Brick Road” and reflecting on how each path connects to the larger ETB community. ETB Co-Director Angel Villalobos then guided us through an ecosystem-mapping activity using the visualization of a tree and all the components it takes for the initiative to flourish within the evaluation ecosystem. As the world around us continues to shift, so must we. While reflecting on where we were, where we are, and where we’re going, team members shared experiences, questions, and observations. It was important to ask questions—those we cannot answer alone and those that will continue resurfacing as we work to disrupt traditional notions of evaluation.

We enter our retreat spaces knowing they serve as launch points for continued planning with ETB community members, as we cannot do this work alone. Our team is now developing plans for the weeks ahead as we approach a new calendar year, leaning on the trusted knowledge of evaluators, funders, and community partners committed to sustaining this work with us.

As we return to our remote desks after the AEA conference, here are three affirmations from our team that will continue to ground us and guide the work:

• Community is crucial. We will continue to center community; it will always remain core to who we are.
• Standing strong in our values. Despite everything happening, we are finding ways to keep the work going.
• Sharing knowledge. Our stories cannot be heard or carried forward if we don’t tell them.