Short Abstract

Explore learning partnerships, how they differ from (and encompass) evaluations, and why they matter for adaptive change. Using examples from foundations and small arts organisations, we’ll discuss the principles and approaches of these partnerships and how they build healthy evaluative cultures.

Description

Good adaptive change work requires people within systems to be reflective, honest and open. It requires creating time and space to think together, to generate insight and relevant evidence, and to support organisations to adapt to circumstance – all while retaining a focus on their intentions for change.

As consultants, evaluators, learning professionals, we want to support evaluative thinking and promote good, evidence-based change work.

But…focusing on evaluations can get in the way.

At IOD PARC, we have been working alongside large, long-term programmes to support cultures of evidence and learning.

We work alongside grantee partners to support their organisational practice around evidence, communications and adaptation; we work with cohorts and partner networks to bring them together for shared insight; and we work at the programmatic level to uncover and communicate insights into collective change.

We do this by creating learning partnerships that encompass but do not foreground evaluation.

So, what is a learning partnership? How do learning partnerships differ from evaluations? Which core principles and approaches underpin a partner organisation/grantee-led approach to learning partnerships? And how does this approach help to build healthy evaluative cultures?

This session will explore these questions through a short presentation followed by a round table discussion session.

The presentation will highlight a couple of practical examples from the learning partnerships IOD PARC has led in the last five years, including our work with two major foundations and smaller arts for social change organisations. This grounded practice has guided the development of our learning partnership model.

We will explore key principles of our work such as accompaniment at each level of the system, supporting curiosity and different ways of knowing, gathering well to find joy and insight in community, and effective and engaging storytelling.

We will explore key supportive approaches including reflective practice, working with results from the ground up, reframing theory of change (hope in action maps), and network support and engagement. We think our model supports honest, engaging evidence work, contributing to effective evidence, learning, evaluation, and communication practice – and we would like to talk to others about their work in promoting good evidence cultures.