Reflections

The materials offered here are illustrations of my knowledge products. I produce briefs, working papers, articles, webinars, videos and other products that help us be smart, innovative and intentional in our social impact work.

December 31, 2015, was a turning point for me. After founding and growing ORS Impact for more than 25 years, I stepped off its leadership team and faced my next big challenge. Assessing the future, I realized I have too much fire in my belly to “retire,” but I am equally unattracted to developing another company. While […]

The demand for evaluation of social impact has reached an unprecedented level. Interestingly, though, the evaluation profession has hefty competition in its home-field among a rising profession of “impact analysts,” and may not have the home field advantage. Why has demand for evaluation increased? Who is competing with the evaluation profession? And why don’t evaluators […]

Pressing world problems like the rising tide of inequality and climate change cannot be solved by the public sector alone. This is one of the realities motivating venture philanthropists and market-oriented impact investors to bring billions of dollars of resources and innovations to activities addressing our world’s social and environmental threats. These new actors are […]