I believe evaluation should help you learn, not just prove you did.
For years, I watched thoughtful, committed people treat evaluation as something to ensure. Data was collected but rarely used. Reports were written and shelved. Teams spent enormous energy demonstrating impact without every strengthening their ability to learn from the work itself.
It made me wonder: What if evaluation wasn’t simply about accountability? What if it became one of the primary ways organizations built their capacity to navigate complexity?
That question shapes everything I do.
ABOUT
Hi, I’m Laura.
“The most valuable insights often emerge in moments of uncertainty when we’re willing to sit with complexity long enough for something new to take shape.”
— Laura Richards, Illuminary Perspectives
I’m not here to deliver findings and move on.
I work alongside organizations to build adaptive learning capacity - the ability to notice what’s changing, make sense of what you’re seeing, and respond with intention while the work is still unfolding.
That requires more than good data. It requires creating the conditions for your team to ask better questions, sit with uncertainty long enough to understand it, and turn insight into action before the moment has passed.
HOW I WORK
A practice, not a framework.
Every engagement is different. These five capacities are always the same. And each one builds on the last.
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Before collective any data, we understand your context: history, relationships, goals, and the questions that actually matter. Evaluation should serve your learning, not force your work into someone else’s framework.
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We pay close attention to patterns, tensions, and signals that might otherwise go unnoticed in addition to outcomes. This is where organizations begin to see their work differently.
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I facilitate sensemaking with the people closest to the work, not for them. Findings aren’t delivered from a distance. They’re developed in dialogue until shared understanding begins to emerge.
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As insights emerge, we help teams refine strategies and make decisions in real time. Learning shapes the work as it unfolds, not after it’s over.
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The goal is never dependence on an external evaluator. We build the habits and structures that allow your organization to keep learning long after our work together ends.
Learning isn’t a deliverable. It’s a practice.
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Evaluation should build, not extract.
The best evaluation doesn’t pull knowledge out of organizations. It strengthens their ability to use knowledge themselves.
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Equity is a practice, not a checkbox.
It shows up in who asks the questions, whose experiences shape interpretation, and who participates in making meaning.
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Uncertainty is where insight lives.
The most valuable understanding often emerges when we’re willing to sit with complexity long enough for something new to take shape.
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The people closest to the work hold valuable knowledge.
Those doing the work hold essential knowledge about how change happens. My role is to create conditions for that knowledge to surface and be used.
How I Partner
I work with foundations, nonprofits, networks, and collaborative initiatives engaged in complex, adaptive work.
I take on a small number of partnerships at a time - by design. Deep context, trusted relationships, and sustained engagement are what make this work possible. You can’t build learning capacity at arm’s length.
My practice draws on more than 15 years of experience in evaluation, social work, facilitation, and organizational learning. I hold a Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan. But the most meaningful learning has come from working within and alongside organizations as they wrestle with hard questions and discover new ways of understanding their work.
I show up with genuine curiosity about your context, honest about what I don’t know, and committed to the belief that the people closest to the work hold essential knowledge about how change happens.
Ready to learn differently?
If you’re navigating complexity, wrestling with questions that don’t have easy answers, or looking for a partner who will stay in it with you, let’s start a conversation!