Date: Thursday, November 27, 2025
Hey folks! I’m Olivia Melvin, an Evaluation Associate at the Center for Research Evaluation and outgoing Chair of EvalYouth North America (EYNA). Evaluation has been my professional home for about 5 years now, and I have spent much of that time identifying communities of support for young and emerging evaluators within existing Voluntary Organization for Professional Evaluation (VOPE) structures in the U.S. and beyond. In this blog, I’ll share how EYNA fits within the ecosystem of local, regional, national, and global communities of support. This ecosystem-view parallels the network feature of multi-site and multi-level evaluations, and this blog aims to demystify the complexity that comes with navigating these systems to find the right community of support.
To start, I want to elevate a question that I often receive: what in the world is a VOPE? To answer that question, I’d point folks to Jim Rugh’s aea365 blog. EvalYouth chapters are similar to VOPEs in function but are often referred to as “movements” or “initiatives,” rather than structured organizations. As a result, most EvalYouth chapters are not set up to receive or disburse funds in the way that many national VOPEs (like AEA) are.
If you look past the conceptual nuance and naming conventions, ultimately the VOPEs, initiatives, and movements listed below are all working together at the global level to uplift the importance of youth & emerging evaluator voices and ideas in the field of evaluation. Each one brings a different substantive, geographic, or population focus to the work, cultivating a range of different entry points and pathways to participate in advancing shared goals.
Similar networks exist at national, regional, and local levels. EYNA is a regional chapter of the EvalYouth Global Network, serving several countries (Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.), each with their own national VOPEs. To my knowledge, EYNA is the only VOPE-like entity with an explicit focus on young and emerging evaluators in the North American evaluation ecosystem. EYNA collaborates with AEA and the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES), advocating for meaningful inclusion of youth & emerging evaluators in these national VOPEs and partnering to offer direct programming. EYNA also collaborates with local affiliates in the U.S. like the Arizona Evaluation Network and Gulf Coast Evaluators Network, co-hosting events and ideating scholarship and professional development opportunities for emerging evaluators in smaller pockets around the country.
There are endless communities to get involved in, and they may not all be right for you. Try things out, connect with some new folks, and find the people that help to nourish your love for the field of evaluation! Please do explore how you might connect global efforts, in addition to national and local opportunities that we are often more familiar with!
The American Evaluation Association is hosting Cluster, Multi-site, and Multi-level Evaluation TIG week. The contributions this week come from our CMME TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.