Date: Sunday, April 13, 2025
Greetings, AEA365 readers! I’m Courtney Long, a director of program development and innovation at UMPC Health Plan. I focus on supporting the Quality Improvement department in building infrastructure to support organizational learning and utilizing evaluative thinking to make better decisions to accelerate improvement.
This week, we are thrilled to bring you a series of insightful posts from the Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building (OL-ECB) Topical Interest Group (TIG). Our focus will be on how organizations can strengthen their ability to learn from evaluation and integrate those insights into practice, fostering adaptive and effective decision-making.
Organizational Learning (OL) refers to the processes through which organizations develop, retain, and apply knowledge to improve performance. Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) is the intentional effort to strengthen an organization’s ability to engage in and use evaluation effectively. From an evaluation perspective, these two areas are deeply interconnected—when organizations cultivate a culture of learning, they are better positioned to integrate evaluation findings into their decision-making and program improvement efforts.
ECB involves enhancing technical skills, developing supportive structures, and fostering an evaluation-friendly culture. When organizations invest in their evaluation capacity, they move beyond compliance-driven evaluation to a more meaningful, integrated process that informs strategy and enhances outcomes. This shift is critical in today’s ever-changing landscape, where organizations must be responsive, data-informed, and accountable to their stakeholders.
In the current political and societal climate, the need for robust organizational learning and evaluation capacity has never been greater. Nonprofits, government agencies, and philanthropic organizations are facing increasing pressure to demonstrate impact, make data-driven decisions, and remain adaptive amid uncertainty. Challenges such as shifting funding priorities, social justice imperatives, and rapidly evolving community needs require organizations to be both agile and reflective.
Evaluation plays a crucial role in helping organizations navigate these complexities. However, without the internal capacity to engage with and use evaluation findings effectively, organizations risk missing critical opportunities for growth and adaptation. By strengthening their learning culture and evaluation capabilities, organizations can:
Throughout this week, contributors from the OL-ECB TIG will share practical insights, case studies, and innovative strategies to help organizations enhance their learning and evaluation capacity. Some key themes we will explore include:
Whether you are an evaluator, a nonprofit leader, or a funder looking to deepen your organization’s learning capacity, we hope this week’s posts will provide valuable takeaways. We invite you to engage with us, share your experiences, and reflect on how you can champion organizational learning and evaluation capacity in your own work.
Stay tuned for a thought-provoking and inspiring week ahead!
Best,Courtney LongOn behalf of the Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building TIG
The American Evaluation Association is hosting Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building (OL-ECB) Topical Interest Group Week. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our OL-ECB TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.