Date: Thursday, November 6, 2025
Hi! We are Rhonda Schlangen, a learning and evaluation consultant, and Melanie Kawano-Chiu, Director of Learning & Evaluation at the Disability Rights Fund/Disability Rights Advocacy Fund (DRF). In our work, the same tension surfaces again and again: do we choose rigor or values?
At DRF, which regrants funds from multiple funders to disability rights movements around the world, we live this tension every day. The multiple audiences we serve each have valid expectations of rigor. Our task is to interpret expectations in ways that uphold our principles of accessibility, safety, and inclusion.
We draw inspiration from successful disability rights advocacy, which shows that real change begins when people start to see disability rights as human rights. Evaluation faces a similar challenge: changing how people view what makes evaluation “rigorous” is a first step toward shifting expectations. Too often, rigor and values are treated as opposing goals, as if we must choose between being technically sound and true to our principles. It’s a false choice. Rigor is fundamentally about the soundness of reasoning and the integrity of how evidence is generated and used.
For disability rights outcomes (dignity, autonomy, empowerment) persons with disabilities are their legitimate experts on their own experience. Self-reporting is valid because people know their lives. We might prioritize documenting that an accessibility law passed because it’s verifiable evidence of policy change. But that is only part of the story. The more rigorous question is “Did it actually improve the lives of persons with disabilities?” Advocates might report new bureaucratic barriers or weak enforcement. So, their lived experience completes the policy evidence. When evidence reflects lived experiences and protects dignity, it meets a higher standard of rigor.
If someone worries that an evaluation isn’t “rigorous” because there’s no control or comparison group, or because baselines for complex, movement-driven change are hard to establish, pause the discussion. Such designs are often impossible or ethically inappropriate in advocacy and movement contexts. Acknowledge the concern, then reframe: an approach that reflects how change actually happens is rigorous.
When DRF developed its Movement Outcome Framework, we faced exactly this question. Clean baselines were unrealistic for advocacy that unfolds across multiple actors and contexts, so we focus on transparent reasoning, triangulated evidence, and accessible processes. Those choices strengthen rigor by grounding reporting and analysis in context and ethics.
Shifting the pressure for rigor—away from partners in the community and toward funders or internal MEL structures—can create space for more participatory approaches. DRF’s MEL team has built DRF’s internal learning and accountability system to absorb the complexity of evaluation and reporting requirements instead of expecting grantees to become MEL experts. By absorbing the technical load, DRF makes space for cultivating trust and meaningful participation while maintaining strong evidence standards.
Once even a small pocket of agreement opens, use it to experiment. Reframing rigor around purpose rather than procedure opens room for creativity, even with tight TOR constraints. Rigor and values meet when evaluators draw on multiple forms of evidence generated through participatory approaches, like peer exchanges.
In advocacy and policy change evaluation, like all areas of evaluation, we’re measuring whether an intended change happened ‘out there.’ For a rigorous and a values-driven approach, the evaluation community needs to think about the change ‘in here’ – within our community so that people’s lived experiences are at the core. Our bottom line: The real question is whose definition of rigor we use, and whether it serves the work? We look forward to shifting the narrative with you!
Learn more about how to put people’s lived experiences at the core of your data collection by utilizing self-reporting in the Monitoring and Evaluation Strategies for Disability Inclusion in International Development.
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