We work with changemakers that create equitable, thriving communities. Using data and strategic learning, we help these organizations build a better understanding of how to best make the change they want to see.
We see our work as bigger than acquiring new information or identifying successes and failures. When we work with our clients, we help them learn. We ask tough questions, listen deeply, and rearrange and synthesize the information in front of us. In doing this, we help our clients consider the many ways they could define success and use data to pursue the most promising paths to get there.
Histories of discrimination and exploitation influence what counts as credible evidence, and who counts as informed and insightful enough to have a voice in decision-making. As researchers, communicators, and learning partners, we must do our part to address these wrongs and put inclusive methods and marginalized voices at the center of our work.
We believe the pursuit of equity—where everyone has equal access to resources and benefits—to be the highest and best purpose for evaluation. In order to equip communities and movements with the knowledge needed to advance their equity goals, we have to shine light on the many interconnected systems and contexts within which people navigate their lives.
We acknowledge both the expanse and the limits of our personal experiences and rely on one another to keep learning, stay accountable, and complement our different specialties and expertise.
We advocate for evaluation designs that engage community members in determining what questions are important to ask, what methods are appropriate for answering them, what meaning we should make of answers, and the action to take moving forward.
Group facilitation, whether in developing a strategy or making sense of findings, is one of our key strategies for channeling the experiences and ideas of different people into productive conversations.
Our learning cycles with the Center’s climate change, nuclear weapons, and mass violence and atrocity teams tested their assumptions and informed ongoing adjustments to their policy advocacy strategies.
Learn more about Stanley Center for Peace and SecurityLearn moreThe benefits—and challenges—of working across program teams surfaced tensions between the urgent need to work across sectors and long-held grantmaking practices structured by content area.
Learn more about The Kresge FoundationLearn moreTo root out racial injustice, we studied the litany of structural barriers that impede the rise of racially inclusive and representative leaders in the outdoors.
Learn more about Justice Outside (formerly Youth Outside)Learn moreIn-person outcome mapping sessions and deep dives with Fellowship participants revealed how investment in individual health care leaders rippled out to changes in organizational culture and even state policy.
Learn more about California Health Care FoundationLearn moreWe began as BTW informing change, founded in 1998 by Jill Blair, Fay Twersky and Paul Wisotzky. In 2008, the firm transitioned to a second generation of leadership under Ellen Irie, and in September 2013, after 15 years of business, BTW became Informing Change. In 2018—the same year that Informing Change celebrated 20 years of serving the social sector—Ellen, our President and Chief Executive Officer, passed away. Now, Gail Camacho (Chief Operating Officer), Anjie Rosga (Director) and Michael Arnold (Director) share in the leadership of Informing Change, supported by our governing board of advisors.
Ellen stood firmly in Informing Change’s founding values of intelligence, integrity, and compassion. When she added the pursuit of social justice to that list, Ellen made explicit what’s at stake in carrying these values out, and sparked conversations at Informing Change that continue to this day about our visions for equity, inclusion, and belonging.
Ellen’s compassion, paired with her clear-eyed judgment and an uncompromising commitment to being of service, supported colleagues and clients alike in thinking critically about the challenges we face and the solutions within our reach. And she did so with a persistent faith in the good intentions of others and always in service of a better, more just world.
We celebrate Ellen’s legacy every day in the work we do and the clients we partner with. We also dedicate a day of pro-bono consulting to her. Learn more about Ellen Day.
