The Evaluation
Roundtable
Thank you 
Thank you
With thanks to the long-term sponsors of the Evaluation Roundtable:
Since 2014, IVAR has convened the UK Evaluation Roundtable which offers independent trusts and foundations an opportunity to gather and reflect on the design, development and use of different approaches to evaluation and learning. As well as a convening every 18 months, a smaller Community of Practice for foundation staff leading on evaluation and learning began meeting in October 2019.
The roundtable is for leaders in evaluation, including CEOs, directors of evaluation, learning or impact, senior programme and grants officers with the authority to effect change in their organisations. Participants have challenged one another to think more deeply and concretely about how grant makers can engage in learning and increase their ability, and that of grantees and partners, to achieve the results they seek.
This page is home to resources, updates and ways to get involved to support individuals on their learning journeys.
It really helped stimulate my thinking about work we are doing to develop more of a learning culture in our organisation.
Evaluation Roundtable convening
Convening for trusts and foundations every 18 months to explore and reflect on the design, development and use of different approaches to evaluation and learning.
Community of Practice
The Evaluation Roundtable Community of Practice is a space where evaluation and learning staff can share challenges and dilemmas, and learn from each other’s experiences in a safe space.
Resources for Learning
We will publish teaching cases and other resources here to support learning across the sector.
Find out more
If you are interested in attending our roundtable events or want to find out more, please contact Houda at:
houda@ivar.org.uk
Attendance is by invitation only but we warmly encourage you to get in touch.
Evaluation covers a broad range of activities:
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Performance management e.g. reporting and monitoring
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Knowledge management
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Organisational learning
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Strategic learning
Here, the term is used to represent the suite of foundations’ evaluation related activities focusing on the use of, and demand for, evaluative information rather than solely on evaluation.
Within the Community of Practice, we use the term learning to mean ‘not monitoring, not impact assessment, not log frames, not descriptive reports, but properly focused, informed consideration of truly mission-critical questions – about both strategy and practice – which lead to action’. When we talk about the learning system, we are thinking about ‘planners and decision-makers at all levels, faced with complex questions where there is no “right answer” … finding a way forward by using a range of data and insights to inform their thinking and their actions’.
Latest reports
Briefing papers:
Finding a path through complexity
Exploring the data vacuum/avalanche; managing trustee expectations; and creating space to learn. Discussions identify ways learning staff are achieving clarity of purpose and a sense of progress within complexity.
Publications:
Learning in Uncertainty
With a growing appetite for learning within trusts and foundations to ensure the Covid-19 crisis acts as a transformational moment, how do we ensure our progress is sustained?
Evaluation within UK trusts and foundations
Practice, use and challenges report – 2015
This report presents a picture of evaluation within larger trusts and foundations in the UK — at the time — to understand the range of evaluative activities and how they were organised and invested in; explore perceptions of the use of evaluative information to inform work, and explore the challenges for practice.
Read more
Corra Foundation and Pears Foundation case studies
Teaching cases 2019
Two detailed case studies exploring the learning practices in two foundations, along with notes for how to use these teaching cases to support reflection and learning in your own organisation.
Read more
Improving evaluation design
Report from Evaluation Roundtable convening 2016
This paper offers a practical resource for foundation staff to assess and improve their processes for the design stage of commissioning external evaluations. It does not cover all aspects of the evaluation cycle but, drawing on insights from 2014-2016, it addresses concerns raised by a broad range – in terms of size, type, stage of development and approach to evaluation – of foundations.
Read more
Making learning everyday
Follow-up report from Evaluation Roundtable convening 2019
Beginning with an exploration and discussion of two teaching studies to understand their implications for learning and practice, followed by designing a set of principles which distinguish the practice of high quality learning organisations and help us think about how we can support learning by building a set of habits.
Read more
Esmee Fairbairn Foundation: learning in responsive grant-making
Teaching case 2017
Following the theme of ‘learning in responsive grant-making’, trustees, staff (current and former) and grantees of the foundation are interviewed for a teaching case highlighting the development and uses of learning approaches over 15 years.
Read more
Corra Foundation and Pears Foundation case studies
Teaching cases 2020
In our two new cases, Corra Foundation and Pears Foundation share how their approach to learning has performed under pressure in response to Covid-19, and their initial thoughts on how this will influence the way they learn for the longer term.
Read more
Blogs
10 December 2020
Making learning visible
Amy Braier, Shoshana Boyd Gelfand & Bridget Kohner | Pears Foundation
read more
Blog series: Learning through lockdown
September 2020
How do you learn when everything is in a state of flux? Learning and ideas on how to put learning at the heart of foundations’ responses to Covid-19 from participants of the Evaluation Roundtable Community of Practice – with a summary blog from IVAR on how learning informs decision-making.
read the blog series
19 November 2020
The good, the bad and the future
Ciorsdan Brown | The Goldsmiths' Company
In the sixth and final of our learning from lockdown blog series, Ciorsdan Brown describes how The Goldsmiths' Company family united around a shared vision to deliver emergency grants.
read more
Blog
What’s it like being ‘under the microscope’ as a teaching case?
Gina Crane, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
read the blog
03 September 2020
Joined at the hip: Why you can’t make good grants without investing in learning
Ben Cairns
read more
What does it mean to be a learning organisation?
The third convening of the UK Evaluation Roundtable network took place in May 2017 with the theme of learning in responsive grant-making. In preparation, we carried out a review of the literature on what it means to be a learning organisation.
Read the literature review
Events
Coming up:
Community of Practice –
16th November 2021, 10:00 – 11:30
Community of Practice –
24th November 2021, 14:00 – 15:30
Evaluation roundtable convening: ‘Giving learning a seat at the strategy table’ –
Spring 2022
24th November 2021, 14:00 – 15:30
Spring 2022
Find out more
If you are interested in attending our roundtable events or want to find out more, please contact Houda at:
houda@ivar.org.uk
Attendance is by invitation only but we warmly encourage you to get in touch.
Learn more about IVAR