Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Hello! I am Pearl Avari, evaluator from the Center for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas. As an evaluator, I sometimes wonder: “What good is evaluation if no one uses it?” Evaluation is beyond just documentation–it can prompt dialogue, shape policy, and transform communities. The way we share findings makes all the difference!
Data tables and numbers are necessary, but they often fall short. Change is prompted when findings are disseminated in ways that demand attention and cannot be ignored. Incorporating the lived narratives of communities makes the evidence harder to ignore.
The question is not simply, “How do I share results?” but, “How do I share them so careholders and leaders cannot walk away unchanged?”
Photovoice is a powerful method that shifts who defines “evidence.” Participants use photography to capture lived realities and share narratives that explain their meaning. Through collaborative dialogue, the result becomes more than visual data, it is community-driven interpretation.Imagine an evaluation of access to safe and affordable housing. Residents’ photographs of moldy walls, drafty rooms without insulation, or unsafe stairwells tell a story that numbers alone cannot. They provoke uncomfortable but necessary conversations with stakeholders, policymakers, and the community. Photovoice transforms findings into a moral imperative for change.
Resources like Implementing Photovoice in Your Community, Photovoice Worldwide, and Photovoice offer accessible guides for designing and facilitating such projects.
Interactive dashboards give careholders the opportunity to explore data on their own terms. I’ve seen dashboards highlight hidden patterns which in traditional written reports may be overlooked. When school administration, those in the nonprofit sector, or policymakers can filter, zoom, and compare data, they begin asking their own questions. This careholder-led discovery leads to powerful collaborative conversations.
Tableau Public and Power BI are creative resources that can make findings dynamic and interactive.
Story maps can be transformative! For example, a food security program might use maps to display areas with limited grocery stores. The data alone is compelling, but becomes much stronger when maps are paired with community stories. Suddenly, what looks like a geographic gap reveals structural barriers that shape daily life.
Esri’s Story Maps is one such story mapping tool.
The most powerful lesson I’ve learned is that findings don’t always create change on their own, it’s the accompanying stories that do. A dataset can show disparities, but it is the narrative supporting the finding that makes people care enough to act. Evaluation results disseminated impactfully can transform “evaluation findings” into urgent calls for justice. As evaluators, we can go beyond analyzing data and help communities tell their truths in ways that compel decision-makers to action.
We’re looking forward to the fall and the Evaluation 2025 conference with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). 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 contribute to AEA365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to AEA365@eval.org. 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.