Reclaiming the History of Evaluation

This article was written by Linda Lu from Innovation Network and Esther Nolton from Everstead Strategies.

Long before evaluation became a formal field, communities came together to share observations, determine what mattered, establish mutual responsibility, and decide what moving forward looked like.

As the field wrestles with equity, participation, legitimacy, expertise, and power — conflating the profession with the practice of evaluation risks narrowing:
→ Who belongs in evaluation
→ What counts as knowledge
→ Whose knowledge matters
→ What purposes evaluation can serve

Linda and Esther bring their own cultural and professional histories into this work — from Taiwan to Tibet, from federal evaluation infrastructure to youth-focused gender justice — asking where their traditions and ways of knowing situate themselves in evaluation’s history.