FWIW as a donor I would be very wary of giving to a research organisation without a theory of change and/or strategic plan and an idea of how to measure impact (surveys or otherwise). Someone saying such work was not needed would be a massive red flag to me. Like if a global health charity says we don’t need to measure impact we know we are doing good – maybe that global health charity is the most effective global health charity in the world but it is not going to be able to convince me of that fact.
I’d also be wary of that, and I tentatively think that many research orgs should probably move towards doing more explicit thinking about their theory of change / strategic plan and impact/progress assessment, and providing somewhat more public info about this. (The fact and way that Rethink Priorities does this stuff was one of the things that made me excited about getting a job with them [though this comment is just my personal opinion, as with most/all of my comments].)
That said, I get the impression that your version of these stances might be a bit stronger than mine, or a bit different.
One thing that feels worth stating explicitly is that me not having seen an org’s theory of change / strategic plan / approach to impact assessment doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have these things. They might have fair reasons for not making these things public.
And I’m also potentially ok with an org not having explicitly written these things down, if they’ve had thorough discussions, have a shared understanding, regularly check in about these things, etc. (This might apply especially to smaller and newer orgs.)
(I’m not sure whether you’d disagree with these things—they just felt worth stating explicitly. I’m also uncertain about my views on these matters, and want to think more about them over the coming year.)
Thank you all super interesting reading.
FWIW as a donor I would be very wary of giving to a research organisation without a theory of change and/or strategic plan and an idea of how to measure impact (surveys or otherwise). Someone saying such work was not needed would be a massive red flag to me. Like if a global health charity says we don’t need to measure impact we know we are doing good – maybe that global health charity is the most effective global health charity in the world but it is not going to be able to convince me of that fact.
I’d also be wary of that, and I tentatively think that many research orgs should probably move towards doing more explicit thinking about their theory of change / strategic plan and impact/progress assessment, and providing somewhat more public info about this. (The fact and way that Rethink Priorities does this stuff was one of the things that made me excited about getting a job with them [though this comment is just my personal opinion, as with most/all of my comments].)
That said, I get the impression that your version of these stances might be a bit stronger than mine, or a bit different.
One thing that feels worth stating explicitly is that me not having seen an org’s theory of change / strategic plan / approach to impact assessment doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have these things. They might have fair reasons for not making these things public.
And I’m also potentially ok with an org not having explicitly written these things down, if they’ve had thorough discussions, have a shared understanding, regularly check in about these things, etc. (This might apply especially to smaller and newer orgs.)
(I’m not sure whether you’d disagree with these things—they just felt worth stating explicitly. I’m also uncertain about my views on these matters, and want to think more about them over the coming year.)