Evaluation is facing a crisis: questions of representation, relevance, harmful practice and credibility are more pressing than ever. Storytelling could be part of the solution!
When storytelling is used in ways that are truly relational, culturally-anchored and trauma-informed, stories can shift power, change mindsets, honour diverse voices and lived experiences, and produce evidence that is more relevant, credible, inclusive and impactful.
But despite best intentions, some barriers remain:
- How do we create the space for good qualitative approaches in a world dominated by AI and quantitative metrics?
- How do we move beyond tokenistic methods?
- How can we constantly keep in check and overcome unconscious bias and limitations resulting from the dominant Euro-Western system?
- Who can we turn to to discuss practical issues and solutions to issues as they arise?
The Community
Relevant to anyone interested in using storytelling in ways that avoid doing harm and reduce the effectiveness of your learning, evaluation and decision-making practice – whether you are new or an experienced practitioner.
Join any of our quarterly webinars to:
- Meet other like-minded practitioners
- Hear and share from the latest innovations, challenges, and lessons learned
- Engage in peer-learning and collective problem-solving
Foundational Course
You can also register your interest to join our next half-day foundation course in transformative storytelling.
Who is the course for?
- For those interested in using storytelling in ways that avoid doing harm and reduce the effectiveness of evaluation findings.
- For those that have been using storytelling approaches and want to make sure they are doing so in ways that avoid doing harm and reduce the effectiveness of evaluation findings.
What will you learn?
To improve evaluation evidence via the use of transformative and more EDI storytelling approaches. This includes:
- Understanding the limitations of dominating structures, mindsets and approaches and how they negatively impact the use of storytelling in evaluation and its findings.
- Reimaging storytelling approaches in evaluation to increase their credibility and potential for positive impact, particularly for historically discriminated and marginalised groups across a range of intersectional dimensions.
- Recognising and valuing nondominant forms of knowledge and lived experiences.
- Using trauma-informed, culturally sensitive and healing approaches in storytelling for evaluation.
Who will teach the course?
Yulye Jessica Romo Ramos, Director & Principal Consultant at Nexus Evaluation.
With an MSc and 15 years of experience in diverse thematic areas globally, Jess is recognized for her equitable, diverse, and inclusive approaches. She integrates these principles with systems thinking and innovative methods to formulate strategies and to evaluate and learn from social innovations, large investments, and development programs.
Jess is a seasoned trainer and facilitator. Over the last 10 years, she has delivered a range of online and in-person trainings, including systems change for governance and EDI for the City Bridge Foundation and London Youth members; Impact and Learning for the Health Foundation, Outcomes Harvesting for GiZ and The Wellcome Trust – to name some.
Cost: £300 per person. Discounts available for groups of 3 or more!
Register your interest by completing this form:
Background
This is an effort that started a couple of years ago, with a couple of widely read/shared thought-provoking articles published by the School of Systems Change and the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI).
The above was followed by an opinion piece published at the UK Evaluation Society (UKES), alongside a webinar.
Most recently, we had an article published in the UKES’s Evaluation Practice Journal (spring edition, 2026) – furthering practice and learning in this area.
Nexus Evaluation LTD 