Preparing Students for Careers in Social Impact Design & Evaluation

Social impact design and evaluation is a growing field; one that bridges more traditional evaluation settings (e.g., nonprofit, government) with newer ones (e.g., ESG, impact investing). In this session, participants who are interested and/or experienced in practicing evaluation in social finance settings will discuss what skills, knowledge sets, and sensibilities evaluators need to thrive in this field. This conversation will then turn to discussions of how to best prepare students for careers in social impact design and evaluation, especially in social finance. We will discuss questions such as: Where do the skills and values of evaluation overlap with those of social finance? Where might they diverge? How can we prepare students to infuse the values of democratic participation, justice-centered social analysis, and equity-focused advocacy into social finance evaluation? And what new knowledge and skills might students in traditional evaluation programs need to make their work legible to social finance contexts?
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