Many foundations have experienced the “dusty report” syndrome. You commission a multi-year evaluation of a vital initiative. The resulting deliverable is a final report with 50 pages of colorful data visuals, community quotes and descriptions of what happened. It raises important insights and patterns, but when it reaches the decision-makers who develop strategy, it falls short. It fails to answer the most pressing questions these decision-makers have: So what? Why do these findings matter? Now what do we do?
Situations like these are familiar in philanthropy. GEO’s 2025 National Study of Philanthropic Practice finds that nearly all foundations surveyed conduct evaluations, but only about half report using them to inform the development of their grantmaking strategies. The Center for Evaluation Innovation’s national longitudinal research on foundation learning and evaluation practice echoes this challenge: most foundations struggle to translate evaluative work into insights that feel meaningful. This difficulty is often most acute when an evaluation’s purpose is to inform strategic decision-making. Why the disconnect?
One key explanation is context detachment, which occurs when an evaluation is separated from its environment and circumstances. The connection can range from completely separate to fully integrated, and the reality is often a mixed picture. To make evaluation strategically effective, foundation staff and evaluation consultants must pay closer attention to the evaluation, foundation and strategy contexts in which we’re working, and ensure our thinking and practices align with the realities on the ground.
Why Are Evaluations Detached From Strategy?
Tying the “what” to the “so what” and “now what” requires us to attend to several contexts: the evaluation, the foundation and the strategy. Evaluations are often designed to explain what happened and why or how, but not to offer interpretations of what those findings mean for specific strategy decisions in a given context. This norm probably has scientific roots that emphasize and reward technical rigor. However, relational and organizational factors, like when the foundation will make strategic decisions, are often overlooked.
Some foundations may lack the structure needed to incorporate evaluative insights into their strategy development processes.
At the same time, some foundations may lack the structure needed to incorporate evaluative insights into their strategy development processes. For instance, strategy and evaluation might be organized into separate departments without established norms for coordination and collaboration. This can result in evaluation findings emerging only after strategic decisions are finalized or in broad evaluation purposes aimed at multiple audiences, which may lead to findings that are too general to be truly useful for any specific group. These structural gaps often accompany practical limitations, such as evaluation budgets and timelines set before collaborators understand the decision context.
An evaluation study is a snapshot in time, but strategies unfold in dynamic environments shaped by shifting conditions and constraints.
Additionally, foundations are increasingly developing strategies for dynamic, complex systems, such as bridging the health care and education systems to improve childhood mental health. An evaluation study is a snapshot in time, but strategies unfold in dynamic environments shaped by shifting conditions and constraints. What works in one setting or in a similar setting a few years ago may not hold true under different circumstances, such as a new political environment or changes in relationships between advocacy organizations and government institutions.
A big part of what’s missing is alignment among the evaluation, foundation and strategy contexts, leaving a gap in translating what happened into why it matters and to whom, and what can be done about it.
How Might We Better Align Strategy and Evaluation?
Power to better align evaluation with strategy rests with foundation leaders, program and evaluation staff, and consultants. Below are three actions that are within all our spheres of control or influence.
1. Cultivate situational awareness throughout the evaluation to adapt plans and ensure they remain relevant.
Rather than treating evaluation as a fixed plan to execute, foundations and evaluators can cultivate situational awareness together throughout the process. We can attend to how external conditions and organizational priorities evolve and adapt the evaluation questions, methods and products to align with them, all the while managing practical implications of the budget, scope and timeline.
In practice, this could include regular check-ins with those who know the evaluation, foundation and strategy contexts, revisiting evaluation questions as insights emerge and contexts change, or producing interim findings timed to key decisions. It could also include scanning for broader system changes, such as policy shifts, that affect the relevance of the findings.
In my work with a spend-down foundation focused on maternal and infant mental health, we scheduled two phases of data collection. After the first phase, the funder, technical assistance provider, and evaluation team gathered to make sense of the phase one findings so that we could calibrate the focus for phase two given changes in the external context and within the foundation.
By staying attuned to the contexts as they evolve and interact, evaluation is more likely to generate meaningful insights that are timely and relevant to strategic decision-making.
This kind of adaptability is easiest when it’s built into the scope from the start; without that flexibility, evaluators have to make the case for revisiting the approach, which can be an uncomfortable conversation about time and cost. By staying attuned to the contexts as they evolve and interact, evaluation is more likely to generate meaningful insights that are timely and relevant to strategic decision-making, strengthening the connection between the “what” and the “so what” and “now what.”
2. Attend to boundaries in evaluation and strategic learning to generate shared expectations and make thinking explicit.
To ensure the evaluation is not only technically sound but also practically relevant, we need to closely examine what is included and excluded from the evaluation’s scope. Attending to boundaries means critiquing, interrogating and deliberating elements that are often taken for granted as understood. For instance, we often see evaluations that aim to serve foundation program staff, board members and executives, as well as grantees and the “field,” without clarity about which groups need what, what decisions they are making, when they need the information, and what the evaluation can and can’t answer. Pause and ask: Why, in particular, are we doing this evaluation? Who and what decisions will it inform and not inform? Where and to whom will it be relevant, and where won’t it?
Pause and ask: Why, in particular, are we doing this evaluation? Who and what decisions will it inform and not inform?
In practice, this can include early conversations among evaluators, program staff and leadership to clarify specific intended users and uses and contextual constraints. It could also include revisiting these boundaries as the work evolves, especially when the strategy or foundation contexts shift.
One foundation I collaborated with aimed for the study to contribute to the development of the field, leading us to tailor our communications plan to this main audience. In practice, the grantee partners acted as representatives of the field to help shape the study’s focus, and we intend to update the communications plan once we have clearer key insights. This approach will enable us to connect insights with important stakeholders, then create products and identify messengers to effectively reach them.
Raising these questions can feel risky, especially for consultants or newer and more junior staff who worry that naming what an evaluation can’t answer could jeopardize relationships. However, when foundations, especially leaders, can make room for this conversation, it can help them avoid expecting the evaluation to answer questions it wasn’t designed to answer. This clarity helps ground the evaluation in the foundation’s context, making the “so what” more precise and the “now what” more applicable.
3. Co-create the “so what” and “now what” to explore actionable, relevant possibilities.
The “so what” and “now what” are developed through interpretation and dialogue — gone are the days of single “experts” rendering an opinion about why something matters and what we can do about it. In today’s world, having diverse perspectives is essential for seeing the bigger picture and understanding the unique role we can play in achieving common goals. Co-creating meaning and action brings together those who generate evidence and those who make decisions, along with others who have critical perspectives, like grantee or community partners.
Co-creating meaning and action brings together those who generate evidence and those who make decisions, along with others who have critical perspectives, like grantee or community partners.
In practice, this can take the form of facilitated sense-making sessions, structured decision workshops or cross-functional data parties where findings are interpreted in light of current priorities, opportunities and constraints. These spaces allow participants to surface assumptions, examine trade-offs and tensions, and explore how insights might be translated into action within a specific foundation and strategy context.
One global, health-focused foundation I work with has seven-year strategy cycles. Before the strategy’s midpoint, evaluation consultants study how the work unfolds and facilitate sense-making sessions with program staff to directly inform strategy revisions.
These sessions require significant consultant and staff time to execute effectively, and some evaluators might not feel prepared to facilitate them or may not see their role as strategy facilitators. Even so, when it works, co-creation helps ensure that recommendations are grounded in lived realities. By collectively interpreting and acting on findings, foundations strengthen both the relevance and validity of the “so what” and “now what.”
Now What?
The gap between evaluation and strategy reflects a deeper misalignment between how evaluation is typically designed, how foundations are structured to make decisions, and the complex, changing contexts in which strategies unfold. Addressing the disconnect requires us to shift how we approach learning in foundations so we can move beyond documenting what happened to determining what matters and shaping what’s possible. Even well-aligned evaluation is only one input into decision-making, which is also shaped by board expectations, funder-consultant relationships and foundation learning cultures. But closing the gap helps improve the odds that evaluations and evidence matter.
What would need to change in evaluation, strategy or your foundation for evaluative insights to meaningfully shape the direction you take? What are you trying and learning? Reach out and let me know!
Dr. Albertina Lopez is a systems-change evaluator and strategic learning facilitator with nearly 15 years of experience helping philanthropy use strategy, learning, and evaluation to advance social progress and justice. She currently serves as a Director at the Center for Evaluation Innovation, where she leads national field research on foundation learning and evaluation practices, facilitates peer learning and content development with the Evaluation Roundtable network, and evaluates foundation strategies and interventions in complex settings.