A07: Harmonizing Strategy and Learning

Strategy and learning are not as different as they are sometimes treated. By engaging its members in a structured learning process as an integral component of an overall evaluation approach, a funder collaborative can enhance the quality of learning and its usefulness for improving strategy, collaboration, alignment and ultimately, impact. Speakers will offer insights from ClimateWorks and funders collaborating on climate action, who have used Emergent Learning tools to strengthen both strategy and learning across organizations and geographies. This approach has helped funders bring their best collective thinking forward and more efficiently test and adjust their strategy. You will receive handouts with practical examples of tools you can use to create a learning community with co funders and other partners. You also will have the opportunity to engage with ClimateWorks and reflect with peers on their own thinking about the link between strategy and learning.

Session Designers

Speakers

Ann Cleaveland, ClimateWorks Foundation

Biography

Ann Cleaveland has led the deployment of structured learning and evaluation approaches at ClimateWorks, in service to the charge that ClimateWorks and its partner funders made for ClimateWorks and the funder collaborative to cultivate a culture of sharing and learning.

Tim Larson, Ross Strategic

Biography

Tim Larson has been providing Emergent Learning and Developmental Evaluation support to ClimateWorks over the past several years. He also works with other foundations and government agencies focused on energy, environment, climate change, and sustainable economic development to improve strategies using Emergent Learning, Developmental Evaluation, and other approaches.

Marilyn Darling, Fourth Quadrant Partners

Biography

Marilyn Darling is a partner of Fourth Quadrant Partners and a founding member of the Society for Organizational Learning. She pioneered the field of Emergent Learning and has worked over 20 years to develop tools and principles that link strategy, learning and evaluation around complex work. Emergent Learning emphasizes making thinking visible and providing frameworks to test it in real-time. She studied the learning practices of grantmakers, as reported in A Compass in the Woods: Learning through Grantmaking to Improve Impact. Marilyn’s recent clients include Annie E. Casey Foundation, Colorado Health Foundation, Ford Foundation, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Living Cities, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, and The World Bank.

2016 National Conference

May 2–4, 2016

Twin Cities, MN