Impact and learning
At Laudes Foundation, collecting and assessing evidence is central to how we learn, make decisions and adapt how we do our grantmaking. We do this through measuring and evaluating together. We use insights from our partners, the wider context in the world around us, and specific industry context to understand what is changing and what that means for how we move forward. Nurturing a culture that supports learning, thinks critically and makes questioning part of reflecting and sensemaking is part of how we operate.
At Laudes, that means:
-
using evidence to inform decisions, not just to report on them
-
creating space to reflect on what’s working, what isn’t, and why
-
being open to challenge, uncertainty, and unexpected outcomes
-
working to bring together the benefits of hindsight with foresight
-
adapting strategies as understanding evolves
How we learn and adapt as a philanthropy
Learning at Laudes is about recognising that change, especially industry change (i.e: systems change) is complex and ongoing. Learning becomes a continuous process of making sense of that complexity, which we do together with our partners. We don’t view measuring and evaluating as a way of tracking progress against a fixed plan; or independently judging progress without the participation of our colleagues and partners.
Rather, we see it as a way of continuously building our understanding of what’s changing and what that means for how we move forward, together.
How we learn and adapt as a philanthropy
Questioning is central to how we work
To continue to learn, we keep returning a simple but important question: are we doing the right things, are we doing things right, and how do we know?
In answering this, we bring together different types of evidence at different scales and perspectives; from the specific work of our partners and our programmes, moving to the broader context of what is happening across the industries that is relevant. We use that to critically reflect on our contribution to the progress being made by our partners towards our mission of economies that are green, fair and inclusive.
That question helps us stay focused on realities of change. It helps us challenge our assumptions. And it creates the space to adapt when needed.
How we learn and adapt as a philanthropy
Working in complexity
The industry challenges we’re engaging with are deeply interconnected.
So rather than focusing only on individual projects, we try to understand how change is happening across the system – how different actors across business, policy-makers, workers and investors, their decisions, and behavioural dynamics – come together over time.
This means being open to ambiguity. It means valuing different kinds of evidence, including experience and perspective, not just what can be easily quantified. And it means creating space to pause and make sense of what we’re learning – even when the picture is incomplete – as part of reoccurring sensemaking.
We don’t expect everything to be precisely measurable or clear. But we do strive for our evidence to be approximately “good enough”, to keep learning.
How we learn and adapt as a philanthropy
An adaptive approach to evaluation
A big part of how we do this is through the tools of Developmental Evaluation.
In simple terms, it’s a way of evaluating that supports learning in real time.
Instead of waiting until a fixed time (e.g., strategy mid-point) or end, we continuously gather evidence to distil insights and use them to adapt.
It helps us stay responsive and grounded in evidence as our strategies and grantmaking towards those strategies evolve, bringing together different sources into a more complete picture of change.
Outcome Rubrics
Within Laudes, we assign Outcome Rubrics to all of our partner grants. Rubric-based analysis is made based on feedback from our partners and industry context monitoring, to make sense of how the system is progressing over time.
Rather than tracking only activities, counting outputs or focusing only on quantitative indicators, these rubrics help us reflect on the quality and depth of change we’re seeing.
We have outcome rubrics across five key actor areas:
-
businesses
-
financial institutions
-
policy implementers
-
workers and communities
-
multi-stakeholder coalitions
Outcome Rubrics
Working with partners to understand their resilience
We have one important rubric which we ask our partners to use, with a set of 10 resilience subcomponents, to help them and us understand together how they are adapting and sustaining their work over time. This is important because change doesn’t happen in stable conditions. Partners are constantly navigating uncertainty, shifting contexts, and competing demands that require their organisations to build and maintain resilience.
We are interested in whether partners can continue, adapt, and stay effective over time, and how they do that. Our Resilience Rubric is based on the Resilience Framework, which was developed by our Organisational Development and Inclusion Team in consultation with our Industry Teams and partners.
Working with partners to understand their resilience
An outcome-focused partnership approach
With our partners, we work to ensure a strong outcome-focused approach to their work. We ask partners to reflect on the outcomes they expected to see, the outcomes that actually emerged, and the context they were working in. It moves us away from reporting as a compliance exercise, and towards something more useful, a shared understanding of progress, challenges, and what we’re learning together.
Over the years, we have found that the most valuable insights come from the gaps between expectation and reality.
An outcome-focused partnership approach
From learning to action
Ultimately, this is all in service of better decisions.
The insights we generate don’t live in reports or PowerPoint decks, they live in the discussions and debates we have across Laudes and with our partners. They shape how we adapt our strategies, how we work with and support our partners, and where we focus our efforts.
We continue to test, refine, and evolve our approach, to ensure that it stays practical, relevant, and grounded in the realities of learning. We hold ourselves accountable to learn and to improve how we can support the work of our partners and support systemic change.