Our names are Chris Allan, Executive Director of Ajabu Advisors, and Atalie Pestalozzi, M&E, Research, and Design Specialist with ISET-International. We’ll be traveling to Arusha, Tanzania in July 2026 for the first ever Outcome Harvesting Community Exchange Meeting, and we’re really excited about it.
We have done a fair number of evaluations using Outcome Harvesting, and learned a lot along the way. We’ve learned how it can help pull out key themes from the mist of too much confusing data, and how it can show patterns of progress that can be hard to discern. We have also grappled with how to use it as a monitoring tool, working with organizations to help them use it to track progress and look forward. We’ve had great mentors and partners for this learning journey, but would like to hear from others what their experience has been, and how they deal with some sticky problems we’ve run into along the way.
Some of the things that we hear from time to time are:
“Our outcome harvest shows all the things that we’ve done well, and even how we did it. But it doesn’t say much about the negative results we also get.”
“This process seems to be taking a long time, and requiring a lot of work. Can’t we cut some corners to save time and money?”
“We’re trying to change culture, which takes years. How can Outcome Harvesting help us if we’re still far from our goals?”
“I’ve only been able to do interviews and workshops on Zoom. It seems pretty limiting and response rates are lower than we want, how can we increase participation and engage people better on a computer?”
“We use Outcome Harvesting as the main tool for our monitoring across many countries and languages. I’ve noticed people differ in how they write outcomes and analyse them – how can we bring different styles and priorities together into a coherent picture across many different places?”
We are curious to explore more of what we don’t know or haven’t thought about. This exchange will be a great opportunity to learn from others about the creative ways they’re adapting and evolving the methodology, and how they’re looking forward as they use Outcome Harvesting. A few things we’re looking forward to thinking bigger about:
How are equity and inclusion considerations, especially in sensitive contexts, being addressed?
What are some innovative analysis tools, including uses of AI, that are being explored and show promise?
What are some creative and visually engaging ways people are presenting their Outcome Harvesting data?
How are people using outcomes and harvest data beyond monitoring and evaluation, like for communications, training, etc.?
Where else could Outcome Harvesting have a role? How else can we experiment with it?
We are looking forward to meeting new people from all over, as well as spending time with colleagues who we’ve only ever worked with on Zoom. We are sure they’ll have lots of new insights that can really help us grapple with those things that we haven’t been able to solve on our own, and to share some of our experience with them. Hope to see you there too.
If you haven’t booked your seat already, for the first face-to-face gathering of Outcome Harvesting practitioners, happening from 7 – 9 July 2026, at MS TCDC in Arusha, Tanzania, this is your chance.