A FLEX-ible Evaluation Approach for your Organization
Written by Hannah Wohltjen
While working with mission-driven organizations over the last 10 years, we at Elevate Consulting started noticing a set of recurring trends:
Internal capacity for evaluation and impact measurement tends to be limited, especially for smaller organizations. This creates a challenge, because evaluation efforts require consistency and someone “watching the island” to be considered statistically significant.
Sometimes, a more traditional consulting structure isn’t the right fit. Perhaps you don’t just need someone to produce a deliverable (e.g., an evaluation report); rather, you need someone to work alongside you and your team, operating together to integrate context and build capacity.
Sustaining internal momentum for evaluation work (e.g., implementing an evaluation plan) is hard once your external consulting partner’s work engagement ends.
Ultimately, we’ve learned that mission-driven organizations need more options for evaluation and impact measurement support to truly make their work sustainable. There will always be a need for deliverable-based work (and we’re here for that, too!), but a critical indicator of our success as an organization is building our community’s capacity to construct systems that work for them to use and learn from data.
Our Solution: Fractional Learning and Evaluation Experts (FLEX)
FLEX works like other fractional support models with which you may already be familiar (fractional CFOs or COOs, for example). A FLEX Consultant from Elevate Consulting integrates into your team for a set amount of time on a monthly basis, providing expert evaluation support tailored to your organization’s needs.
FLEX Consultants are experienced evaluators on the Elevate Consulting team, with expertise across the full evaluation lifecycle (design, implementation, analysis, and reporting). Rather than delivering a single product and moving on, FLEX Consultants operate as embedded members of your team to build the systems and capacity your organization needs in order to keep learning from its own data over the long-term.
As we’ve engaged in this work over the last two years, we’ve garnered these key takeaways:
Flexibility matters. We end up regularly assisting with both emergent (“We need to fix this now!”) and long-term needs. Because FLEX isn’t tied to a single deliverable, consultants can respond to the very real and tangible shifts happening within an organization’s service ecosystem while still holding the thread on bigger-picture work.
Needs shift over time. Early engagements often center on articulating an impact measurement strategy and building out data collection processes. As that foundation solidifies, the focus tends to shift toward data integration and use. Analysis and reporting remain consistent needs throughout, since organizations are always sharing their work externally.
Yeah, yeah…but what does a FLEX engagement actually look like in practice?
Here are some things you can expect:
Scoping: We work with you at the start of the project to determine how many hours per month your organization needs. This number can be revisited as you work with us.
Format: Your FLEX Consultant can work on site or virtually, depending on your organization’s needs and our ability to travel (something we determine together up front and can revisit as needed).
Structure: We help identify urgent needs, establish long-term goals, and check in regularly on progress. Shared project plans keep everyone aligned as goals evolve.
Communication: We establish regular check-ins (typically every other week) with your organization’s main point of contact and relevant staff.
FLEX isn’t for everyone, but you might be a good fit if you respond “yes” to any of the following on behalf of your organization:
We have identified specific evaluation or impact measurement needs and are ready to act on them.
We don’t currently have dedicated evaluation staff and aren’t planning to hire any soon.
We want sustainable, ongoing support for evaluation integration, data management, analysis, and reporting rather than a one-off deliverable.
We are comfortable with an ongoing engagement rather than a project-based contract.
We are looking for evaluation support across the organization, and not just for a single program (though a FLEX Consultant can certainly still focus more heavily on specific programs if that’s the priority).
