Evaluation that Builds Community Power Begins with Trust

Equitable evaluation uplifts and empowers communities to envision a better world that we all need and deserve.

Beginning in 2020, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) made a $90 million investment in Community Power, including bodies of work in housing justice, birth justice, and local base-building. In this piece, Gina Hijawi, Senior Program Officer in Research-Evaluation-Learning (REL) at RWJF, interviews Dr. Monique Liston, founder and chief strategist at UBUNTU Research & Evaluation, a learning community committed to Black liberation, dignity, and community leadership. Together, they discuss the evaluation of RWJF’s Community Power investments in housing justice and the practice of equitable evaluation more broadly. UBUNTU writes, “Equitable evaluation [uses evaluation tools and approaches] to uplift and empower historically undervalued or unheard perspectives – to conduct evaluation in a way which truly advances equity rather than simply paying lip service to this.” 

Dr. Monique, I’d love to hear what brought you to this work. Why does equitable evaluation resonate with you?

I became passionate about taking an equitable approach to evaluation because I saw an opportunity to use the tools of the field to help people envision a better world, which we all need and deserve.

I saw in this kind of evaluation an opportunity to share radical imagination—the ability to think beyond current limitations and dream of more just futures, to thoroughly love community in practice, and to use my research skills to help shape decision-making in different program areas. So, to me, evaluation is a tool as we aim for a collective liberated future for all.

How can evaluation advance community power-building?

To build community power, evaluation must move at the speed of trust within communities, not in compliance with philanthropic agendas. The more communities can learn to advance their own goals through evaluation processes, the more they will be able to exercise their power when they engage philanthropy or local governments.

When you build an evaluation team, what are you looking for?

I have had the honor and privilege to always work as part of a team. I don't do anything by myself, and that's because of the way I have nurtured myself as a leader. I understood that two heads are always better than one, and three are better than two, and it can only go up from there. 

At UBUNTU, I’m always looking for folks who are willing to challenge their core beliefs, no matter what the evaluation is. I think in building a team, the experiences people have had in the past are less important than their willingness to think of themselves as being part of a collective now. A collective is a community of people with shared values and responsibilities. That's what I've learned over the long term: Experience and degrees are important, but what matters more is being open to learning with and for the teams and organizations we partner with. 

Unapologetic Black women, femmes, and non-binary folks power our team. They are committed to resisting anti-Blackness and building the intellectual and political defenses of all Black people, in solidarity with the global majority. 

In collaboration with Mathematica, your team evaluated the Community Power housing justice work, which aimed to build power among low-income renters of color to address long-standing patterns of structural racism embedded in housing policy. What did you discover it takes to build power, and to ensure local housing policy reflects the priorities and needs of renters?

After completing a literature review and talking to folks engaged in housing justice, we identified six interconnected domains of power-building. 

1. Narrative power
   Controlling how both media and the community understand the work, the narrative, and the messaging. Whose message is the community protecting, utilizing, and respecting?
   
2. Political power
   Holding electoral power, policy power, and political influence. How do we build relationships with those in power or change how they view our work?
   
3. Material power
   Having the resources, buildings, cash, and people necessary to actually do the work. Who controls access to those resources, and how do we shift that?
   
4. Visionary power
   Creating a vision of what community members want for their future. What work will help articulate that vision?
   
5. Leadership power
   Building leaders for the movement. How can folks go from being impacted by a justice issue to being leaders who help others work past that issue?
   
6. Philanthropic power 
   Having more than just the financial support of philanthropy, but also an open channel of communication with funders. How can a community influence how a foundation like RWJF perceives its role within a movement?

How does UBUNTU define evaluative power? How does evaluative power fit into community power-building?

Evaluative power is the ability to use evaluative thinking to advance the work and influence of your own organization. When we began our housing justice evaluation, we saw that grantees were asking some of the same questions we were, but because they were so connected to the work, they didn't have the time, energy, or experience to answer them. We realized that building evaluative power would help give organizations better insight into those six domains of power that are so important to their work. 

The evaluation process is often an extractive one; shifting that evaluative power toward grantees is one way to counteract this power dynamic. 

What can community organizers and advocates in other fields take away from your evaluation? Why should they explore evaluation for their own work?

One big takeaway is the self-growth that organizers gain, at the individual level, by participating in an evaluation. Through that process, they are building their own skills—skills they can use as they continue their work. 

Then there’s the power gained at the organizational level by participating. The more organizations and its members are able to understand what questions are most meaningful to the field—instead of what questions appeal to funders—the more effective they will be in taking control over evaluation and how it's utilized. 

The last thing I’ll mention is shared language. Knowing how to talk about evaluative work is crucial to navigating other funding opportunities and advocating to continue the work you’ve done. It comes down to dismantling the structural racism that is baked into the ivory towers—towers that historically funded, designed, and determined what the field needed instead of partnering with the people and communities who know best.

About the Author

Gina Hijjawi, Ph.D., senior program officer, Research-Evaluation-Learning, joined RWJF in 2018. With her deep commitment to bridging systemic gaps in children’s health and social services, she values “the opportunity to advance understanding of how child- and family-serving systems, environments, and policies can support the healthy development and wellbeing of all children.”