I2I’s Heart-2-Heart on Culture Shift, Peer Firm Spotlight, and Eval25 Rewind
Welcome to the November 2025 edition of Intention 2 Impact’s Heart-2-Heart — our monthly newsletter where we share what’s on our mind, in our hearts, and up our sleeves.
There are 35 days left in 2025! Here at I2I, we're preparing to shut down the office for Thanksgiving and resisting the urge to slide into “circle back in January” season.
Before we fill our plates with all the Turkey Day fixin’s, we’re dishing out a recap of key messages from the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) Conference in LA, spotlighting Everstead Strategies, and playing back our favorite moments from AEA.
On Our Minds
Culture Shift For the Win
If you’ve been following I2I for even a mili-second, you know narrative change to advance social change is one of our fave topics to yap about. Naturally, we loved to see culture and narrative in the spotlight at the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) Conference in LA earlier this month.
I2I Senior Consultant, Sahiti, was on site for CEP 2025, gleaning a cornucopia (with Thanksgiving next week, how could we resist?!) of gems to relate back to I2I’s work. And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, we are sharing the bounty with y’all!
1. Culture Shift is a Force that Proceeds & Sustains Policy Change: CEP panelist shared that our public opinions on issues are shaped by years of narrative buildup that happens far outside formal advocacy spaces. Take justice system reforms for example: Years of fear-based narratives shaped public opinion in ways that data alone could not counter. Which is what Gathering for Freedom tried to fix in collaboration with John Legend, unlocking sweeping policy success across multiple states since.
Similarly, culture shift is imperative to sustain change. Panelists argued that Roe v. Wade fell, in part, because legal protections weren't matched by sustained cultural groundwork.
2. Culture Change Starts with Curiosity, Not Assumptions. To shift culture, we must first answer: Who is the audience, what do they already believe, and how do they move through the world? Panelists shared that the most trusted messengers for culture-shifting content were everyday figures: popular TV shows, pediatricians, local radio hosts, laundromat owners & neighborhood influencers. These insights fundamentally reshaped campaigns and made them more grounded and relatable. Green Screen, for example, leveraged Grey’s Anatomy’s influence to tell a climate-focused story as part of their larger narrative strategy.
3. Culture Change is a Long Game: No shade to the funders out there, but meaningful culture change doesn’t happen in a funding cycle or through one-off content. It’s slow, iterative, and built through consistent presence. Panelists remind us that culture work requires patience, flexible funding, and a willingness to stay long enough for ideas to take root. Can you believe you have to see something at least 7 times to actually remember it?!
What does this mean for us at I2I? We’re taking these hot-takes to heart. If culture is where change begins and what sustains it, then our measurement approaches need to evolve too. This looks like attention to early signals, not just late-stage outcomes. It means building learning systems that are curious about meaning and resonance as much as about reach or impressions.
It also galvanizes us to challenge the assertions that culture work is “too soft” to be measured. It simply requires different questions, different indicators, and more humility about how change unfolds.
In Our Hearts
Last month, I2I turned 7 years old — and because we believe growth is something to share, not hoard, we celebrated with a 7th Birthday Giveaway to pour back into the community that’s poured into us.
One prize was a feature in this very newsletter, spotlighting brilliant leaders shaping the future of evaluation.
Which brings us to this month’s spotlight… 🔦
✨ ESTHER NOLTON, Founder of Everstead Strategies ✨
Esther has spent the past two decades working at the intersection of research, strategy, and policy — beginning her journey as a sports medicine clinician (!!!) before shifting her focus to systems-level research and performance measurement. She’s known for her rare evaluator superpower: the ability to zoom out to the big-picture systems view and zoom in to the critical details without losing the thread.
She approaches complexity with clarity, curiosity, and deep collaboration. She never works in a silo. She brings partners in, considers context holistically, and centers equity and resilience in every decision. Her work reminds us that evaluation is not just an analytical discipline, but a relational and justice-oriented one.
Learn more about her firm, Everstead Strategies, & peep a photo of Nina and Esther at AEA in Kansas City earlier this month.
Up Our Sleeves
And speaking of AEA… the American Evaluation Association conference in Kansas City (Nov 11–14) was a whirlwind of connection, creativity, and community. Here are our four standout moments:
1️⃣ Plenary Highlights: Dr. Sarah Lewis on Vision & Mastery
Dr. Sarah Lewis’s plenary was a masterclass in how creativity, justice, and evaluation intersect. Our favorite insights:
Near wins propel mastery. Progress often comes from the almost-successes that push us to keep going.
Be a deliberate amateur. Curiosity > expertise. Play is essential to innovation.
Change the metric, change the narrative. If we want society to see differently, evaluators must measure differently.
2️⃣ Pay Her Forward: Kansas City Edition
Our 5th annual Pay Her Forward fundraiser was pure joy. With your generosity, we raised $1,535 for United WE, a Kansas City-based nonprofit supporting women’s civic and economic equity.
Great people, bangin’ headshots, good energy — thank you for showing up and keeping this tradition powerful and growing.
3️⃣ Nina’s Live Podcast Taping on The Evaluation Couch
Nina joined Maria Montenegro, Denise Baer, and Nathan Varnell for a live podcast recording exploring the future of evaluation. They unpacked:
Why evaluators must spark public demand for what we do
Why the future of evaluation lives beyond government
The global standards raising the bar for everyone
The case for one bold, unified pitch for evaluation… that might use the word ‘evaluation’ at all
Listen here:
🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eyevWaid
🎧 Apple: https://lnkd.in/exPd4wKh
🎧 No subscription: https://lnkd.in/e2zmD9fm
Onward and upward, y’all!
You know, heart-2-hearts are supposed to be a 2-way street…
So comment below, what’s on your mind, in your heart, and up your sleeve? Hopefully a lil’ bit of good trouble. 😉
Subscribe to the newsletter here!
Until next time,
Intention 2 Impact
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