The Collaborators Consulting Group (CCG) is a consortium of equity-focused interdisciplinary researcher-evaluators founded in 2016 by Dr. Stacey Kesten and Dr. Susie Paterson. At CCG, we support individuals, organizations, and initiatives in creating sustainable, transformative change through research, evaluation, strategic planning, and capacity building. We specialize in theory-driven evaluation and utilize participatory and strengths-based approaches to strategic planning and capacity building. We bring an abundance of energy, passion, and innovation to our work because we truly believe in the power of research, evaluative thinking, and strategic learning to promote progressive social change, transform systems, and ultimately create a more just world where all can thrive.
In addition to our core members, we have a long-standing partnership with the Engagement, Power, and Social Action (EPSA) Team in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Miami. Established by Dr. Scot Evans in 2012, EPSA’s mission is to utilize action research in solidarity with community partners to understand and expose injustice, build social theory, and promote collective action. Through our partnership with EPSA we are able to contribute to the development of emerging community-based researchers and evaluation practitioners by offering paid and volunteer opportunities to a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students with the expressed intention of increasing representation of BIPOC and other underrepresented students and professionals in evaluation spaces. EPSA students make tremendous contributions to our projects and we are incredibly grateful for this fruitful partnership and the value they bring to our community partners.
Our Mission
To support individuals, organizations, and initiatives in creating sustainable, transformative change through research, evaluation, strategic planning, and capacity building.
Our Vision
We believe that strategic learning coupled with authentic collaboration play a critical role in achieving sustainable, transformative change. We envision a world where individuals, organizations, and initiatives value ongoing learning and are both willing and able to embed evaluative thinking and practice into their work.
We are inspired by Michael Quinn Patton’s vision of “an experimenting global community, one characterized by commitment to reality-testing, respect for different perspectives, and open dialogue about evidence - a world in which ongoing learning is valued and practiced, and knowledge is generated and used.”
Our Approach
At CCG, we approach our partnerships with genuine openness, care, cultural and methodological humility. Our work is guided by and draws inspiration from number of frameworks and models including Utilization-Focused Evaluation (Patton, 2008), Equitable Evaluation Framework (EEF)™, Theory-Driven Evaluation (Weiss, 1997; Rogers & Weiss, 2007, and Collaborative Evaluation Practice (Rodriguez-Campos & Rincones-Gomez, 2012).
We are committed to leveraging stakeholders’ existing knowledge and experience to reflect the exact learning and evaluation needs of the program in both the short and long term, with a goal of being used to foster true impact.
To learn more about our approach and the benefits of collaboration in research and evaluation, sign-up for our FREE introductory workshop!