People‐Centered Approaches That Can Expand the Role of Evaluator

ABSTRACT This article tells the collaboratively developed story of a group of seasoned external evaluators who utilized people‐centered approaches as part of their role leading a collective impact initiative, and the lessons they learned along the way. The article is framed for practitioners. It begins with a focus on who—who evaluators want and need to be for the people they are serving—and the ways that decision opens new possibilities for the role's evaluators can and should play. We highlight the importance of advocating for a defined group of people when using people‐centered approaches. A final section focuses on two constructs (learning ecosystems and agency) that can be applied across many evaluation sectors to support people‐centered data collection and analysis. Our experiences have convinced us that inciting social change is not only something that evaluators can do—social change is something evaluators should strive to achieve. People‐centered approaches offer important tools for this work.