Enabling Stage-Based Learning: A Funder's Guide to Maximizing Impact
Better learning will ultimately lead to better results. Enabling Stage-Based Learning: A Funder's Guide to Maximizing Impact is designed to help funders optimize learning at each stage of an intervention’s journey towards scale. This stage-based approach tailors Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) activities to generate actionable insights for intervention improvement and future funding decisions, and reduces unnecessary reporting. This approach has the power to transform how funders engage with their partners and the interventions they support, resulting in more cost-effective and scalable solutions.
The infographic below offers a concise overview of the stage-based learning framework. Keep reading further below to explore the full guide and dive deeper into these concepts.
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The Stage-Based Learning Initiative
Since its founding in 2017, IPA's Right-Fit Evidence (RFE) Unit has delivered nearly 50 advisory engagements with some of the development and humanitarian sectors’ leading nonprofits, funders, and government agencies. While RFE’s direct advisory work focuses on supporting the organizations we engage with to use evidence more effectively, the scope of our impact on the broader development and humanitarian sectors is limited by the size of our team and the bespoke nature of our engagements. To extend our impact beyond our direct partners, we aspire to mainstream better monitoring, evaluation and learning practices through a proposed Stage-Based Learning Initiative.
The aim of this initiative would be to establish partnerships to generate momentum and find practical ways to embed more credible and impactful learning practices in development. This could include creating additional public resources, convening conversations, or establishing a network of Stage-Based Learning practitioners.
This initiative focuses on funders because of their unique ability to influence both their own practices and those of the implementers they support. Additionally, funders play a critical role in shaping expectations and norms around what constitutes effective evidence generation and use.
Contact Us
If you’re interested in being a part of our Stage-Based Learning Initiative or discussing how this framework can benefit your organization, please reach out to us at rightfit@poverty-action.org.