Forget the Judgment. It's Time for Empowering Evaluation

Hey everyone,

I was in a workshop today (7 November 2025 in Sepidan, Fars Province, Iran) talking about the "generations of evaluation," and it got me fired up. We traced the path from simply counting things (1st gen), to describing them (2nd gen), to making top-down judgments (3rd gen).

Then we got to the game-changer: the shift toward collaborative, negotiated evaluation (the classic 4th gen). This is where we start handing the microphone to the community.

But I want to propose we take it a step further. The latest evolution isn't just about collaboration—it's about Empowering Evaluation.

This is the mindset we need for genuine, community-based facilitation.

What is Empowering Evaluation?

Let's be honest. The word "evaluation" can still make people tense. It hints at a report card, an external verdict, a pass/fail grade. Empowering Evaluation flips that script entirely.

It's not an audit; it's a process of co-creation and capacity building.

The goal isn't to produce a dusty report for a funder. The goal is to strengthen the community's own ability to understand, reflect, and direct its future. As a facilitator, my role isn't to be the judge, but to be a guide who helps the community build its own "learning muscles."

How is this Different?

- Old Way (Judgment): "Here's what you did well and poorly."

- Empowering Way: "What have we learned together? What power and knowledge do we now have to move forward?"

How to Practice Empowering Evaluation in Your Community Work

This isn't about complex metrics; it's about intentional practice.

1. Start with "Why Us?": From day one, frame the evaluation as for and by the community. Ask: "What do we need to learn to make this work more powerful for us?"

2. Co-design the Questions: Don't walk in with a pre-made survey. Facilitate a session where community members decide what success looks like and what questions are meaningful to ask. Their values drive the process.

3. Use Your Facilitation Tools for Reflection: Turn your regular meetings into reflective practice. Use simple tools like:

 - "What? So What? Now What?": What happened? What does it mean? What should we do based on that learning?

 - Appreciative Inquiry: Instead of focusing on problems, ask: "What's working best right now? How do we get more of that?"

 - Most Significant Change Stories: Collect and discuss stories of change, then have the group itself decide which stories were the most significant and why.

4. My Role as the Facilitator? A Mirror and a Bridge.

 - I am a mirror, reflecting back the patterns, strengths, and questions I hear from the group.

 - I am a bridge, connecting different perspectives within the community and linking their learning to actionable next steps.

The ultimate success of an Empowering Evaluation is when the community no longer needs me to facilitate the reflection—when asking "How are we doing?" and "What should we change?" becomes a natural, self-sustaining part of their culture.

That's the real goal: not a good evaluation report, but an empowered, self-aware, and adaptive community.

What are your thoughts? How have you seen evaluation empower—or disempower—a community you're part of?

Let's chat in the comments!

AI has helped me in arranging the text. 

Ethics in Facilitation: A Collective Reflection Across Borders

Recently, I hosted an online brainstorming session with facilitators from diverse backgrounds to explore the ethical principles that guide our work. The response was overwhelming—full of wisdom, experience, and heartfelt reflection. What follows is a synthesis of those contributions, enriched by a powerful set of insights from Iranian facilitators who added cultural nuance, lived experience, and philosophical depth to the conversation.

Universal Ethical Principles Shared by Facilitators

From the international brainstorming, several core ethical values emerged:

Respect for Participants: Every voice matters. Facilitators must create inclusive spaces where dignity is upheld.

Confidentiality and Trust: Safeguarding what’s shared builds the foundation for honest dialogue.

Neutrality and Impartiality: Facilitators guide the process, not the outcome.

Transparency and Honesty: Clear intentions and open communication are essential.

Responsibility and Accountability: Facilitators must own their decisions and their impact.

Empowerment and Equity: The goal is to uplift communities, not dominate them.

Cultural Sensitivity: Awareness of context and diversity strengthens facilitation.

Reflections from Iranian Facilitators: Ethics in Action

Iranian facilitators brought a deeply human and culturally grounded perspective to the discussion. Their insights added layers of meaning and practical wisdom to the ethical framework:

Emotional Intelligence and Self-Awareness

Patience and Tolerance: A facilitator must be a nonjudgmental listener with emotional resilience to manage disruptions calmly.

Self-Reflection and Self-Care: Ethics begins with the self. Facilitators must maintain their own mental and emotional health to serve effectively.

Avoiding Projection: Golshan Ghasemi reminded us that ethical lapses often stem from unresolved inner conflicts. Ethics requires introspection.

Human Dignity and Respect

Respecting All Voices: Honoring every participant’s experience and protecting their privacy is foundational.

Avoiding Top-Down Attitudes: Mitra Alborzi-Manesh emphasized that facilitators are not perfect beings—they must avoid imposing project goals and instead co-create them with communities.

Integrity and Accountability

Honesty and Transparency: Facilitators must be clear about their role, intentions, and limitations.

Avoiding Conflicts of Interest: Ethical facilitators must separate personal gain from community outcomes.

Responsibility for Impact: Maryam Lavi raised a critical question: Are facilitators responsible for long-term consequences of their interventions? Ethics demands foresight and humility.

Empowerment and Equity

Sustainable Facilitation: The goal is to build community capacity, not dependency.

Bottom-Up Approaches: True facilitation emerges from listening to lived experiences and redefining goals collaboratively.

Virtue and Character

Ethics as a Way of Being: Ethics is not just a set of rules—it’s a mindset rooted in values like honesty, kindness, and courage.

Universal Values: Traits like gratitude, humility, and respect are timeless and borderless.

Practical Wisdom

Listening Without Judgment: Active listening and empathy can defuse tension and build trust.

Updating Ethical Standards: Ethical frameworks must evolve with society’s changing values and contexts.

Structural Ethics

Defining Ethical Components: Ethics should be mapped to specific competencies in facilitation.

Respecting Cultural Contexts: Ethics must be adapted to the social and cultural nuances of each community.

Philosophical Foundations

Belief as a Moral Anchor: Mehdi Abedi argued that belief in the process itself generates ethical behavior.

Ethical Dilemmas and Outcomes: Should ethics prioritize process or results? This philosophical tension shapes real-world decisions.

Contextual Ethics: Sometimes, ethical action depends on the setting. Facilitating in unethical contexts may itself be unethical.

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A Shared Vision

Across cultures and contexts, one truth stands out: facilitation is not merely a technical role—it’s a deeply ethical one. Whether in Tehran or Toronto, facilitators are called to be patient listeners, humble guides, and responsible stewards of collective processes.

This conversation is far from over. What other ethical dimensions do you think facilitators should embody? Let’s keep building this shared framework—together.

I am back after a long time

For the past ten years, my work in community-based empowerment across various contexts has been all-consuming, leaving me no time to write a single word here on my English blog. During this time, I actively maintained my Farsi blog, sharing various materials on community-based facilitation.

Last week, I decided it was time to bring this blog back to life. I'm excited to start sharing again in English!