Will we see you in Kansas City? The Social Finance TIG is sponsoring the following events at Eval 25 in Kansas City, MO in November 2025:
Happy Hour at the Rockhill Grille
Join us for a welcome happy hour to kickoff Eval 2025!
Hosted by Mission Investors Exchange, GitLab Foundation, and the Social Finance TIG
Tuesday, November 11
4:00-6:30 PM CST
The Rockhill Grille (2000 Grand Blvd. 2nd Floor)
RSVP here!
Eval 25 Poster Session
Wednesday, November 12
5:30-7:00 PM CST
Exhibit Hall D
Evaluation frameworks for private sector investment and advisory services - approaches to evaluate private sector projects using the framework of International Finance Corporation as an example (#177)
Ichiro Toda
The poster will explain how the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, evaluates its investment and advisory service projects. The poster will demonstrate the frameworks, including key evaluation areas and dimensions, and rating approaches, as well as the processes, including self-evaluation undertaken by the project team and validation undertaken by the independent evaluation group. By examining the evaluation activities of IFC, the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in developing countries, the poster intends to provide a useful model for social finance providers and impact investors, who intend to enhance their impact management or evaluation functions to foster their accountability and learning with the purpose of maximizing their impact.
Impact Investments Need Evaluation Too: A Snapshot of Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) for Evaluation Professionals (#210)
Madeline Moerk
This poster will provide insight into the impact investing industry, the role of evaluation in ensuring that impact investing scales with integrity, and the importance of evaluation professionals’ participation. More specifically, the poster will showcase the full spectrum of capital from below market-rate to market-rate investments emphasizing evaluation throughout. It will contrast the segmentation of learning and evaluation and Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) practices with a cohesive evaluation approach encompassing stakeholders across a portfolio. Furthermore, the poster will describe the landscape of IMM including standards such as the 5 Dimensions of Impact, Operating Principles for Impact Management, SDG Impact Standards, and Principles for Responsible Investment. The landscape will also include field-building efforts such as Mission Investors Exchange’s IMM Working Group, Climate SMILE, and AEA’s Social Finance TIG. Ultimately, the poster will express the relevance of IMM to evaluators by demonstrating the opportunity for engagement in the impact investing industry.
Corporate M&E Community of Practice Meetup
Wednesday, November 12
7:00-8:30 PM CST
Exhibit Hall D
The Corporate M&E Community of Practice is getting together for a small, casual meet up at Eval 25. If you are evaluating the social impact work of corporations or for-profit businesses (and their affiliated foundations), we welcome you to join us! You can read more about the Corporate M&E COP here. Email Morgan mbfinlay@rayacooperconsulting.com to be added to the invitation.
Building a shared approach to climate finance impact measurement
Keri Browder, Sasha Zoueva, Veronica Olazabal, Joanna Cohe
Thursday, November 13
10:15-11:15 AM CST
2504 A
The Climate SMILE (Strategy, Monitoring, Impact, Learning, and Evaluation) community of practice is working with Prime Coalition to develop a Climate Finance Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) Playbook—a new resource that aims to demystify climate IMM. The Playbook aims to lower barriers to entry into climate finance by consolidating best practices, frameworks, and tools into a user-friendly guide that helps private investors and philanthropies navigate the fragmented climate measurement landscape.
In this session, we’ll share the story of how the Playbook was created and iterated on through shared leadership, incorporating diverse perspectives from a variety of experts across climate themes beyond greenhouse gas emissions reduction. We will share how those involved form a community of climate IMM practitioners to bring expertise and a critical resource to expand and demystify the practice of climate IMM - with the goal of catalyzing more investment capital for positive environmental impact. Click to fill survey.
Preparing Students for Careers in Social Impact Design & Evaluation
Sarah Suiter, PhD.
Thursday, November 13
5:00-6:00 PM CST
2215 B
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?
TIG Fair & Reception
Thursday, November 13
6:00-7:30 PM CST
Exhibit Hall D
Stop by our table and say hello!
Navigating the human side of the social finance and corporate sectors
Morgan Buras-Finlay & Nina Sabarre
Friday, November 14
12:30-1:30 PM CST
1501 A-C
In social finance, we too often focus on the technical aspects of measurement and overlook the interpersonal and relational aspects at play. But in a field that bridges two very different sectors, vocabularies, worldviews, and ways of working, the interpersonal dimension is paramount. For instance, impact investing teams are often housed within philanthropic foundations, and social impact teams can sit within traditional corporations. This can create conditions that are ripe for culture clash, communication breakdowns, misunderstanding, and mistrust. Evaluators are uniquely positioned to help these teams understand each other, communicate better, and ultimately work together more effectively - and they end up playing this role, even when unplanned. In this Birds of a Feather session, evaluators will share their experiences and lessons playing a mediating role in social finance and corporate contexts.