Systems Learning Studio™

A marketplace for equitable evaluation.

Systems Learning Studio™ is a business model that provides the structure for equitable evaluation. It reimagines the economy of evaluation, creating conditions where positionality is valued, procurement is democratic, and collaboration is abundant. The Systems Learning Studio is a response to the problems we face in the current evaluation system, makes a bold proposition for how we can redesign Culturally Responsive Equitable Evaluation/Equitable Evaluation (CREE/EE), and invites others to continue to build the conditions for a new evaluation economy.

 

THE PROBLEM

The evaluation system is getting the results it was designed to get.

The status quo perpetuates exclusivity, limits innovation, and protects itself, all while neglecting the wisdom of those closest to and most affected by the work.

If this resonates with you, you are likely a funder or practitioner of CREE/EE. You might also agree that there is a critical need to expand equitable evaluation approaches to include a new business model that fosters inclusion, propels collaboration, and promotes accountability.

Traditional procurement and contracting structures for evaluation, especially the RFP process, reward capacity over curiosity, compliance over learning, and reputation over relational trust. This is our vision for change. This is the power and system we seek to disrupt.

Those closest to the work and most affected by it—community partners, smaller firms, and independent evaluators whose expertise and wisdom are grounded in lived experience—continue to be marginalized or left out entirely, particularly when it comes to deciding who is qualified to tell the story for large scale (i.e. big budget) evaluation projects in philanthropy.

The rules of the current evaluation economy reproduce inequity: unpaid proposal labor, network bias, and the “winner-take-all” nature of RFPs or sole source contracts all limit who gets to participate. The system functions as designed, efficient at preserving power, ineffective at disrupting it.

 

THE PROPOSITION

The Systems Learning Studio™ is a systemic, structural shift.

The Systems Learning Studio™ (SLS) was conceived as both idea and infrastructure, a way to redesign how CREE/EE works. It’s systems thinking meets equitable evaluation principles meets positionality.

The Studio tests whether equity can permeate the business side of evaluation—in how roles are defined, how collaboration happens, and how work is funded.

The Studio is a marketplace concept for CREE/EE that:

• Values positionality as expertise and currency. Lived experience, professional knowledge, and institutional power exist in constellations; each shapes how we see systems and the stories we tell about them. And the storyteller matters.
• Supports limitless collaboration. The Studio centers values-aligned partnerships, borrowing key storytelling roles to explore more effective collaboration in both practice and procurement—Executive Producers (those who green light a production with resources, influence, and expertise—these are the funders of CREE/EE), Directors (the lead storyteller, a role where positionality matters when it comes to CREE/EE), and Producers (those who provide evaluation capacity, from logistics to methods).
• Reimagines procurement. Instead of zero-sum competition, the Studio offers an alternative way of assembling and supporting teams—where equity, integrity, transparency, and trust are also currencies.

 

THE INVITATION

We are building the conditions for a new evaluation economy.

The Studio is an open experiment, an invitation to imagine and practice together what an equitable evaluation economy could look like. It is not a new institution or a brand; it is a shared container for rethinking how we collaborate, learn, and hold power differently.

At the inaugural Systems Learning Studio™ convening, participants reminded us that this work requires both structure and spaciousness, a rhythm for slower thinking and collective sense-making. The need for transparency was named (“Don’t tell me your values, show me your budget”), as well as the courage to sit in tension. Participants noted the difference between alignment and solidarity. Alignment risks flattening difference; solidarity honors it while moving forward together.

 

More Information

Systems Learning Studio™ was inspired by this 2022 AEA 365  blog post: The Practice and Business of Equitable Evaluation.

At the 2023 AEA conference, Carlos presented Systems Learning Studio™: Giving currency to positionality, which examined the business model of evaluation, highlighting the problematic currencies of academic credentials, methodological expertise, and institutional capacities, and how they too often prevent positionality from assuming the leadership role the story deserves.

Systems Learning Studio™ is featured as a poster at the AEA 2025 conference, also available as a handout.