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This paper summarizes the discussions of the Gray Rocks conference, a convening of over three dozen international community organizers, activists, evaluators, funders, and other partners that focuses on how to build strong systems to help social change organizations analyze, explain, and strengthen their work.
The paper starts out by recognizing the difficulty of evaluating the impact of social change work, given the long-term nature of the work, the difficulty of changing a policy environment, and the power dynamics involved in attempting to change the status quo. Within this framework, the paper discusses some characteristics of funder-driven evaluations that can be problematic, as well as steps that organizations can take to make sure they are recording and reporting information that can help funders with their oversight needs.
The paper also discusses the tension that exists between internal self-evaluations conducted by groups and external evaluations conducted by outsiders to the organization. While the conference participants recognized the accomplishments of many groups in developing nuanced and effective self-evaluations, they also recognized the limitations these self-evaluations can face. However, participants also recognized the risks that organizations can face when bringing in an outside evaluator who may not understand their work or who may not be interested in using the evaluation to help support the group's growth.
A central theme of the conference was how to use evaluation to strengthen organizational performance and capacity to create social change. The paper closes with a call for the various groups represented to work together in a more effective way to develop stronger systems for analyzing and strengthening the work being done in the social change field. | 
