Expanding the Bench

Expanding the Bench® is one of the few national initiatives building a pathway and inviting excellent evaluators from historically marginalized and under-supported groups to participate. There is a lack of diversity within philanthropy and many foundations have committed to implementing organizational initiatives to diversify their internal strategies and practices.

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ETB increases access to and enhances the skills of racially and ethnically diverse evaluators who have been historically and/or are presently underrepresented or marginalized in the U.S. When we invite historically marginalized and under-supported evaluators who practice culturally responsive and equitable evaluation (CREE) to do this work, we increase the quality of evaluation design, approaches, measurement tools, and other elements in the process. Ultimately, this increases the likelihood that funders of evaluation achieve their desired impact. The most pressing (and expensive) problems are best understood and mitigated if evaluators apply an equity lens when conducting evaluations. When diverse evaluators thrive, the field thrives. Cultivating the practice of CREE through ETB leads to comprehensive, effective evaluations.