Dear Evaluation Community,
My name is Matt St. John, the new President of Washington Evaluators (WE) starting this year, 2025. I would like to briefly introduce myself and talk about our exciting plans for this year.
I have been on the board of WE for approximately two years and served as Membership Chair for the past year. I have over 15 of experience in the field of monitoring and evaluation from working across diverse sectors such as non-profit, local and federal government, as well as the international sector.
While I may have met some of you at our holiday party last December, I wanted to take this opportunity to provide an update on some exciting developments at WE. I believe WE is a dynamic platform that can connect evaluators from the Washington, DC area and beyond, at every stage of their careers—whether you’re a student just beginning to explore the field or a seasoned leader. I look forward to revitalizing this group and fostering meaningful engagement where possible.
The organization is at and exciting cross-roads. As president I would like to increase our programming and especially look at increasing our engagement with our organizational sponsors. Also, with numerous universities in the area, I would also like to support students around expanding mentorship and scholarship opportunities for the study of evaluation. Finally, I would like to consolidate our membership while expanding our outreach with other evaluation organizations both regionally and beyond the DMV area.
Our new Board is comprised of professional evaluators who share a passion for building a stronger, more connected evaluation community. We have a great year ahead, with several events and initiatives planned for 2025, including:
- Expert-led programming focused on various aspects of evaluation
- The President’s Dinner and additional networking events, such as happy hours, fostering connections and fellowship
- The DC Consortium Student Conference on Evaluation and Policy this Spring, offering a platform for students to share their innovative ideas
- Initiatives to spotlight evaluation organizations: In addition to supporting individual evaluators like you, WE hopes to collaborate with organizational sponsors and aim to expand these partnerships this year.
I invite you to participate in one or all of the events!
In conclusion, I would like to reflect on the value of our work as evaluators. Our profession is inherently independent, nonpartisan, and cross-sectoral. According to the American Evaluation Association, our value as evaluators is to "assess the strengths and weaknesses of a program, policy, personnel, product, or organization to improve their effectiveness." In other words, evaluation is also defined as “a systematic process to determine merit, worth, value, or significance of something.” In this period of transition and change, both locally and globally, the skills and insights we bring as evaluative thinkers are more critical than ever in our society.
I invite you to join us in this important work.
Sincerely,
Matt St. John
President, Washington Evaluators