Harvesting Change: A Demonstration of Outcome Harvesting in Equity-Focused Leadership Development Evaluation

This demonstration introduces participants to outcome harvesting as an evaluation method uniquely suited for assessing complex leadership development programs where change is non-linear and often emergent. Using the Leaders for Just Schools (LJS) program—a multi-year initiative that supports educators to lead equity-focused change—as a case example, presenters will show how outcome harvesting was adapted to evaluate contributions to practice, policy, systems, and union-related change. The session will walk through the full outcome harvesting process, including tool design, data collection, verification with collaborators, and synthesis of cross-cutting outcomes. While outcome harvesting is commonly used in community development or advocacy evaluations, its application to leadership development is still emerging. This session demonstrates how the method can illuminate leadership ripple effects across institutions and ecosystems, and how it can support participatory, equity-aligned evaluation. Attendees will leave with tools and takeaways for applying outcome harvesting in similarly complex or values-driven initiatives. Click to fill survey.