Developing a Community of Practice (CoP) on Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) in a Global Network of Women’s Funds

This paper provides a structured description and analysis of the development and implementation of a community of practice (CoP) framework for monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) within women’s funds (WF) around the world, particularly members of the Prospera International Network of Women’s Funds (Prospera-INWF). The Prospera-INWF is the global hub of women’s funds that advocates for resource justice within philanthropy. It supports its 44 members in strengthening institutional capacity that is critical for women’s funds to be resilient and transform the world for women, girls, trans, intersex, and non-binary people and their communities. Co-authors are three members of the Prospera-INWF Secretariat Team, one representative of a multi-regional fund, and two technical consultants who were involved in the CoP development process. Considerations for how feminist principles strengthened the design and implementation of the CoP are discussed. Emergent key learnings of applying feminist principles to develop a CoP that focuses on feminist MEL practice are detailed, including CoPs as a critical, transformative methodology (and not merely a technical strategy). While learnings are gleaned through the specific Prospera-INWF CoP, they may provide useful insights for researchers and practitioners of MEL, adult learning, and evaluation capacity building (ECB), particularly those aiming to engage feminist principles in their work.