Expanding The Bench Week: The Power of Relationships in Coffee Breaks with Evaluators and Funders by Nancy Vang and Neda Moussapour

Date: Friday, November 21, 2025

Hello, we are Nancy Vang, Project Manager, and Neda Moussapour, Field Building Project Coordinator, with Expanding the Bench^® (ETB). Our work primarily focuses on developing opportunities to strengthen relationships between Evaluators and Funders of Evaluation across the evaluation ecosystem who are committed to culturally responsive and equitable evaluation (CREE). Thank you for reading our blog!

We know that relationships are important to achieving transformational, community-led change. As we recognize the power dynamics that exist between funders and Evaluators, especially with racially and ethnically diverse Evaluators, the question that remains: How can we continue to bridge this gap to truly transform how evaluation and funding are being practiced?

ETB is a Change Matrix led initiative that envisions the evaluation field in the U.S. as a dynamic, non-hierarchical, and interdependent ecosystem of actors that include evaluators, funders, nonprofits, academic institutions, local, state and federal government agencies, and individuals with lived experience. We center and prioritize the unique histories, strengths, needs, leadership, and expertise of Indigenous, racially, and ethnically diverse Evaluators and communities.

In 2020, as in-person gatherings paused due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Coffee Breaks emerged as a ‘real-time, rapid response intervention’ co-created by Evaluators and Funders to address the need to connect more intentionally and authentically in a world shifting rapidly to virtual, remote spaces. These virtual events are exclusively offered to the ETB Community, particularly evaluators from the Advancing Culturally responsive and Equitable (ACE) Evaluation Network, alumni from the Leaders in Equitable Evaluation and Diversity (LEEAD) Program, and Funders of Evaluation.

The Benefits of Coffee Breaks

• Meet someone new in an informal virtual setting.
• Share and build a mutual understanding of how CREE is sought after and practiced.
• Improve and expand visibility and contract opportunities for CREE-practicing evaluators.

Lessons Learned

We have had the pleasure of facilitating spaces where evaluators and funders can meet in spaces they otherwise would not. Coffee Breaks are meant to be a ‘get to know you’ opportunity, not a job interview or consultation. However, we recognize that these contexts cannot be ignored when there is a difference between who holds the funds and who doesn’t. Through surveys and listening sessions, our community has affirmed both the power dynamics of relationships and the realities of inequities that persist within the evaluation field.

Here’s what we’ve learned:

• Relationships are important in the evaluation ecosystem.
• We need (more) spaces for authentic connections with Evaluators and Funders of Evaluation.
• These conversations do reinforce the importance of CREE.
• Power dynamics and inequities still exist between funders and evaluators, and the field.
• Funders and evaluators need to work with each other to change the field.
• Meaningful connections do have the potential to transform into opportunities.
• We need more funders to commit to investing in and practicing CREE in the evaluation ecosystem.

Building relationships takes time and effort, and it is not always easy. Yet when Evaluators and Funders of Evaluation come together with intention, authenticity, and shared purpose, those connections have the potential to transform the field.

The American Evaluation Association is hosting Expanding The Bench^® week. Expanding the Bench^® is an initiative committed to diversifying evaluation and elevating culturally responsive and equitable evaluation. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from partners of Expanding The Bench^®. 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.