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Paper short abstract

This presentation will share how a participatory approach was combined with AI-assisted (LLM) review to map the networks and relationships supporting Suffolk’s physical activity participation. We will highlight learning from integrating these methods to understand a complex system.

Paper long abstract

Suffolk, a county in the East of England, experiences consistently low participation in physical activity and marked health inequalities. Traditional, individually focused or programme-based approaches have not been sufficient to achieve sustainable change. Stakeholders recognise that meaningful, long-term improvement requires coordinated action across multiple organisations, sectors, and settings. This has led to a shared commitment to a whole-systems approach and an increased focus on understanding how the system operates, who is involved and where there are opportunities to work together differently.

This presentation will outline how a participatory approach and AI-assisted review were combined to map networks and relationships that support participation in physical activity across Suffolk. The work builds on Suffolk’s ongoing whole-systems approach to physical activity, where earlier evaluation highlighted the need to understand who is currently involved in the system, how organisations connect and where opportunities exist to broaden engagement across sectors.

The project used social network analysis to map relationships and connections between stakeholders across local government, health, voluntary and community partners. An initial participatory approach, based on four structured questions, was used to create an early network map in Kumu (TM). AI-assisted review was then used to examine grey literature and add further detail, helping identify information missing from the initial map. The final and ongoing stage involves validating the map with partners to check that it accurately reflects the space they are working within.

Integrating these methods supports a participatory approach that benefits from the expertise and perspectives of stakeholders within the system, while also reducing the capacity required to develop and update the map. This is important given that systems, and the organisations within them, are dynamic and their relationships non-linear and unstable. Bringing these elements together can help build network maps more efficiently and support their ongoing revision, allowing them to remain current and become living documents that are actively used across the system to guide action, reflection and engagement. They may also support discussions about who is well-connected and able to support change, and where important voices or organisations are not yet represented.

The session will outline the steps taken to design the approach, the practical benefits and limitations of combining social network analysis with AI-assisted review and how this supported shared understanding across the system. A visual map is being iteratively developed with partners and will be shared during the session alongside emerging learning.

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Paper short abstract

Co-op Foundation, with NCVO, built an organisational evaluation culture using participatory approaches and following NPC’s Inspiring Impact principles. Through co-creation, mixed-methods, and a feedback loop, evaluation across funding programmes enabled strategy review and improved practice.

Paper long abstract

Background

Building an evaluation culture is crucial for organisations that want to make evidence-based decisions and foster continuous learning. Such a culture relies on leadership commitment, stakeholder engagement, and integrating evaluation into daily processes. However, embedding evaluation requires more than just technical tools; it calls for participatory and adaptive approaches that amplify diverse voices and encourage the use of evidence. This panel session explores the Co-op Foundation’s journey—partnering with NCVO—as a case study in developing an evaluation culture. The Foundation’s experience demonstrates how collaboration, participatory practices, and the NPC’s ‘Inspiring Impact’ principles can turn evaluation into meaningful action. Team members from the Co-op Foundation and their evaluation consultant will share how they fostered a culture of evaluation, tracked strategic progress, and used evidence to inform their work.

Methodology

In 2022, after launching its “Building Communities of the Future Together” strategy, the Co-op Foundation began collaborating with NCVO to develop an organisational Theory of Change (ToC). Reflecting participatory grantmaking values, the ToC was co-created with input from the Foundation team, Board of Trustees, Co-op stakeholders, funded partners, and young people. The shared aim was that by 2027, young people and organisations would have more power to create fairer, more co-operative communities. To track progress, the Foundation identified ten priority outcomes (five for young people, five for organisations) through internal consultation. A mixed-methods evaluation framework was developed, including tailored surveys and focus group guides, all cognitively tested with end users and based on established methods in the youth and funder sectors. Data was gathered from November 2024 to January 2025, capturing feedback from funded organisations, young people, and individual grant recipients across all Foundation programmes.

Turning Evaluation Findings into Action

Evaluation findings were shared through an iterative feedback process: first in a Foundation team workshop, then with the Board of Trustees, and finally with young people involved in participatory grantmaking. This multi-step approach ensured the results reflected a broad range of perspectives and addressed potential power imbalances. The evaluation framework helped pinpoint ways to improve funding programmes and the capacity-building support offered through partners. Critically, insights from the evaluation informed strategic review sessions, helping the Foundation connect individual workstreams to broader organisational goals—a common challenge in large funding organisations.

Implications for Building an Evaluation Culture

Several factors contributed to embedding evaluation in the Foundation: a cross-organisational project team, a deep collaboration with NCVO, and ongoing stakeholder communication. The process exemplifies how evaluation culture is cultivated not through top-down mandates but through sustained participatory engagement that addresses challenges such as fear of failure, entrenched working patterns, and lack of evaluation confidence. Drawing on NPC’s Inspiring Impact principles—including responsibility, purpose, inclusion, proportionate methods, honesty, acting on findings, and sharing learning—the Co-op Foundation’s approach demonstrates that co-producing evidence with communities and service users, combined with a commitment to learning from successes and setbacks, creates a sustainable evaluation culture. When evaluation is embedded from the outset as a participatory, learning-driven process, it becomes a driver for organisational improvement and community impact.

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Paper 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.

Paper long abstract

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.