Emerging Practice in the Evaluation of Cultural Heritage Projects: Community Engagement in Conservation

World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a US-based non-profit that works with local communities to safeguard irreplaceable cultural heritage. Celebrating our 60th anniversary this year, we have worked at more than 700 sites in 112 countries. Since 2022, WMF has been building an internal monitoring and evaluation system. This is in response to an increased range of sustainable development needs that conservation projects can contribute to (including climate change, inclusive growth, and peace), and increased donor demand for impact data around those needs. WMF project strategies are highly dependent on community engagement for project design, implementation and value measurement. This paper will examine the growing need for impact data in the cultural heritage sector in general; emerging tools and approaches, particularly around community engagement; WMF case studies; current limitations in methodologies; and how this sector can both learn from and contribute to wider evaluation approaches.