Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Greetings. My name is Vivian Agbegha. I am an economist and evaluator focusing on financial and private sector development and impact investing internationally. I am the 2025 and 2026 co-chair of the Social Finance Topical Interest Group (SF TIG) within AEA. The SF TIG bridges the gap in evaluative thinking and methodologies that evaluation professionals see in impact investing.The SF TIG has contributed to field building in social science through thought-provoking webinars, knowledge-advancing blogs, and noteworthy presentations and workshops at annual AEA conferences. In 2025, the TIG hosted the monthly office hours to increase outreach and participation with SF TIG members and the broader social finance community. The office hours meet a longstanding, but unmet demand for evaluators and impact measurement and management (IMM) specialists in social finance. The office hours provide an opportunity for diverse evaluators, IMM practitioners, and those trying to work through persistent and complex IMM issues to exchange ideas and generate solutions.
The demand for office hours was evident and rising in 2025. Members in our sector were suddenly hit by job and contract losses; they were justifiably concerned about their ability to find work opportunities, and they were also concerned about professional development. SF TIG leadership conducted a member survey to understand what members wanted from the TIG. One key finding was that our members needed a space where they could not only network with one another but also work through challenging IMM and evaluation problems. We designed a simple format for the office hours: set the topic and invite interested parties to attend. Anyone could present their issues related to the topic or offer solutions to those presenting their challenges. For other office hours, one or two members could informally present a topic and the attendees could ideate and discuss. We hosted our first office hour in May 2025. The results could not have been more surprising and encouraging.
The office hours quickly gained traction among SF TIG members and prospects.Attendees represented fields of development finance, philanthropy, banking, wealth advisory, academia, and more, joining from around the world from Africa, Europe, and Latin America as well as North America. They were attracted to topics like theories of change in impact investing, how to incorporate systems thinking into Impact Measurement & Management, takeaways from major international impact investing conferences like GIIN and SOCAP, and much more. Some attendees were very new to the concept of impact investing and social finance and simply wanted to hear practitioners exchange in a low-pressure environment. By ensuring that the topics for discussion and problem-solving were real problems that impact investing is trying to solve for now, we drew a larger audience.
This experience illuminated so much. The office hours transformed from being primarily a retention tool to keep current members engaged to a recruitment tool attracting diverse people from all over the world and many industries in an ongoing low-stakes knowledge exchange. The office hours have proven to be warm and welcomin g on-ramp for evaluators and IMM professionals in social finance. The office hours encourage valuable cross-pollination. They also indicate that social finance is as relevant and in-demand as ever. I am happy to be a part of that growth.
I am excited about what new learning will come from our office hours in 2026. The recent international IMM Convening in Montréal offers more confirmatory evidence that evaluators and IMM specialists are thirsting for opportunities to meet and innovate to advance the field of impact investing. The SF TIG will continue to create these opportunities.
The American Evaluation Association is hosting Social Finance TIG Week with our colleagues in the Social Finance Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our Social Finance 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.