Written by: Katherine Haugh, The Convive Collective
My dear evaluator friends, from evaluator to evaluator, I need to tell you: it’s time for us to bring the same rigor and curiosity to designing learning experiences as we do to our research and evaluation work.
As professionals, we are so skilled at designing methodologies that generate credible evidence. In fact, we kick ass at this.
But we don’t always bring that same standard of excellence to designing experiences that help people learn from it.
How relatable is this: you spend months conducting analysis and writing up your findings, only to collapse from exhaustion at the end of the project and basically shout “here you go!” as you toss your 50-page report to your learners. IYKYK.
We all know too well what happens next. Your learners peek through the report. Maybe take one tidbit from it. If you’re on top of it, perhaps you organize a two-hour webinar to walk through the findings.
But hearing something once doesn’t mean it will stick. Ebbinghaus’s classic forgetting-curve research showed how quickly memory can fade after learning. It’s jarring: we forget 90% of what we learn within three days of hearing it. Our learners need opportunities to revisit the evidence, make sense of it, and use it in order to really learn.
Friends, we can’t leave all that to a report and a Hail Mary webinar.
So, let’s do what we do best and design learning experiences informed by evidence about how people actually learn. (Can I get a “hell yeah!” and a fist pump?)
And can I tell you something that is really going to get you fired up? We just finished our fifth Learning Philanthropy Cohort at Convive, and you know what our learners said they valued most?
Our learner needs assessment!
A learner needs assessment should be one of your first orders of business as an evaluator—early enough to inform your methodology and data collection plan.
We’ve heard from foundation leaders who have used our assessment about learners referencing evaluations months later, asking “when is the next session?”, sharing takeaways with peers, and changing their grantmaking strategy or operational approach after engaging with findings.
Those are the kinds of outcomes we want to design toward. And it starts with understanding the person who will use the evidence.
Start with your learner
As evaluators, we spend months understanding a program or strategy. But how much time do we spend understanding the people who will use what we find?
At Convive, we ask questions like:
What would you be thrilled to accomplish in your role?
What’s the biggest drain on your energy?
What decisions are you regularly making?
What information or support would help you make better decisions?
These questions help us connect learning to something people care about and need help with.
Find out what their day actually looks like
One of our favorite questions is simple:
“You log into your laptop in the morning—then what happens?”
The answer helps us understand where learning could fit into someone’s working life.
We also ask what has made previous learning experiences useful, what gets in the way, and when people have space to reflect.
If someone says they have no time, get curious. Is their calendar packed? Do they need support protecting time? Have past learning sessions felt disconnected from their work?
Those answers can change what you design.
Ask what they already know
Your learners are bringing their own knowledge, experiences, and assumptions to the evidence. Get curious about those, too.
We ask: “If someone joined the foundation in a role similar to yours, what would you tell them they need to know?”
Then dig a little deeper. What feels well understood? Where are there questions or disagreements? What do people believe is working, and why?
Their answers help you decide where to start—and which assumptions the evaluation might invite them to reconsider.
Get specific about what “useful” looks like
“I want to understand the findings” is a starting point. Keep going.
What would understanding the findings help someone do? Prepare for a board discussion? Reconsider a grantmaking approach? Have a more informed conversation with a partner?
Ask: “What’s coming up in your work where this evidence could help?”
Then build the learning experience around that real situation. Give people time to work through a decision, explore a question, or plan a next step using the evidence.
Now you have something concrete to design toward—and something to ask about when you follow up.
Ask, listen, and adjust
A learner needs assessment doesn’t need to be complicated. A few thoughtful conversations can help you decide which findings to prioritize, who should explore them together, and what support they need to put the learning into practice.
The important part is letting the answers shape your approach:
“You told us you needed time to discuss the implications with colleagues, so we built that into the session.”
You asked. You listened. You made it useful.
We’re evaluators. We know better than to design a methodology without understanding the context.
Let’s bring that same care to learning.
Get to know your learner. Then design from there.