Building on and Beyond ECB Models to Support Real-World Practice by Leslie Goodyear, Sophia Mansori, Kristen Quinlan, Tracy McMahon, and Candace Kyles

Date: Thursday, January 15, 2026

Hello! We are Leslie Goodyear, Sophia Mansori, Kristen Quinlan, Tracy McMahon, and Candace Kyles, evaluators at Education Development Center with experience doing evaluation capacity building (ECB) for publicly and privately funded education and public health programs.

As practitioners, we find that ECB theories and models offer useful frameworks and guidance for planning ECB efforts and their evaluation. But they can also fall short when it comes to capturing the complexities of the mechanisms and outcomes of real-world ECB work. While some of our ECB initiatives have been stand-alone projects, ECB has often been included in most of our evaluation or technical assistance (TA) work. We have found that taking an expansive, opportunistic, and responsive approach to ECB may mean moving beyond the current models.

Hot Tip:

Based on the elements of our ECB work that were missing in the models we considered, we offer the following considerations:

• ECB can be a vehicle for advancing culturally responsive evaluation (CRE). ECB activities can promote trust, build agency, and encourage shared decision-making, all of which are a natural fit with the principles of CRE. While more information is needed on what effective, culturally responsive ECB looks like and achieves in practice, ECB can provide space for tackling challenging questions about voice, historical trauma, and privilege as they relate to evaluation.
• Articulate and pay attention to relationships, and how they can be used to support ECB. ECB can foster learning among individuals, organizations, networks, and communities, and new and existing relationships can be influenced through ECB and can influence outcomes.
• Recognize that funders and ECB providers actively shape – and are shaped by – ECB.  As you track the outcomes of your ECB work, consider how ECB might influence the entire ecosystem of funders, programs, evaluators, and participants.
• Recognize that there are outcomes for ECB facilitators, and that engaging in ECB can build the skills and knowledge of those facilitators, which in turn informs future ECB activities. This feedback loop can be vital for responsive practice.
• Address ECB facilitator competencies by taking the time to explicitly name the credentials, skills, and experience necessary to effectively support ECB in a given context. For example, do the ECB facilitators have skills in culturally responsive evaluation and learning, organizational development, or facilitating communities of practice?
• Collaborate with TA providers to support cohesion and create synergy between ECB and other TA. Although challenges persist in embedding ECB in TA (and the other way around), engaging with TA providers often and early can help.

Lesson Learned:

ECB is often not a neat and tidy intervention and may take place in a broader “evaluation ecosystem.” When evaluating ECB, consider outcomes for systems, funders, and other decision-makers, as well as how those groups influence outcomes for the individuals and programs that may be the primary intended ECB audiences.

Cool Trick:

Learn and borrow from the development and evaluation of similar types of work including technical assistance and professional learning, and from literature and research on adult learning and the challenge of translating knowledge to practice in other fields.

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