I2I’s Heart-2-Heart on Defining Moments of 2025, Words of the Year, & New Intern Hard Launch
Welcome to the final 2025 edition of Intention 2 Impact’s Heart-2-Heart — our monthly thought piece where we share what’s on our mind, in our hearts, and up our sleeves.
As we close out this absolutely gut-punch of a year, we are reflecting on key moments that defined I2I in 2025, forecasting our 2026 intentions, and announcing I2I’s latest squad member!
On Our Minds
If you find yourself stumbling to the end of 2025, you aren’t alone.
2025 was a disorienting year. One marked by uncertainty, acceleration, and a steady undercurrent of change. And yet, it was a defining year for Intention 2 Impact, helping us clarify who we are, what we stand for, and how we want to move forward.
Definitions help us make meaning of moments. They name what matters, draw boundaries, and give shape to who we are becoming. But definitions don’t appear out of thin air… they’re forged through experience.
So instead of offering a traditional year-in-review, we want to share a set of working definitions, each grounded in a moment from 2025 that helped define us, and taught us something about who I2I is becoming.
Defining moments:
In 2025, we tested what it really means to be a “place” in a virtual world. We welcomed a new team member and said goodbye to one. We navigated role evolutions and planned for our first-ever parental leave. We made room for both grief and celebration—sometimes in the same week—while continuing to deliver high-quality work for clients.
A place isn’t defined by the absence of change, but by how it holds people through it. What defined us wasn’t just that we kept showing up, but that we did so with shared responsibility, intentional planning, honest communication, and deep trust in one another.
Defining moments:
In 2025, we named and sat with tensions that don’t have easy resolutions. We held the complexity of working within philanthropy while interrogating its role in perpetuating inequity. We further explored our relationship with AI—acknowledging both its potential and harms.
We resisted false binaries of use or refuse, opt in or opt out. Instead, we practiced holding generative tension: asking harder questions, setting guardrails, and choosing thoughtful engagement over avoidance. What defined us wasn’t resolving these tensions, but our willingness to stay in them together and use them as a source of learning, leverage, and possibility.
Defining moments:
In 2025, we saw our influence extend beyond individual deliverables. Evaluation work evolved into strategy conversations. Insights generated for one audience traveled to others through synthesis and dissemination. A project that began as an evaluation informed a field-facing publication about philanthropy’s role in responsible technology.
These moments reminded us that our influence doesn’t come from broadcasting answers, but from helping ideas take shape, travel, and take hold. What defined us was our growing clarity that influence is not separate from our work, it is an outcome of doing it with coherence and discernment.
Definitions give us something to hold onto when the ground feels unsteady.
Thank you for being part of this defining year. This is who we are becoming. For now.
In Our Hearts
Speaking of definitions…we weren’t the only ones defining things.
In 2025, the culture barons weighed in on Words of the Year: Oxford selected “rage bait”, Merriam Webster picked polarization, and dictionary.com landed on 67 (yes, we admit, we too had to Google this term several times throughout 2025).
Here are our team members’ personal words of the year and single-word intentions for 2026:
NINA- 2025: fruition; 2026: becoming
KATHLEEN- 2025: endurance; 2026: embodiment
SAHITI- 2025: peace; 2026: ease
ASHLEY- 2025: holding; 2026: grounded
EMMA- 2025: community ; 2026: care
VICTORIA- 2025: reclaim; 2026: expansion
NISHAT- 2025: endurance ; 2026: pacing
What are your words for 2025 & 2026? Drop us a line and let us know!
Up Our Sleeves
Team I2I is over the moon to officially be hosting our first ever Graduate Education Diversity Intern (GEDI), as a part of the American Evaluation Association. This program provides paid internship and training opportunities with the purpose of engaging and supporting students from groups traditionally under-represented in the field of evaluation.
I2I absolutely hit the jackpot with Nishat Akhi. Read more to learn about this dynamo of a human.
Q. What's one thing you're secretly a total expert in that has absolutely nothing to do with your Phd studies/evaluation?
A. Finding humor in the most oddly miserable situations of my life. I physically cannot stay sad for long. At some point my brain switches to “okay but why is this funny though?” mode. If things are falling apart, I will narrate it like a sitcom, crack a joke, and keep it moving. Emotional resilience, but make it comedy. Things keep happening to me which turns into a joke later- and trust me when I say- I am such a good narrator!
Q. What's the best piece of advice you've been given recently, or a 'life hack' you swear by?
A. It's not recent but it's from my dad: “Do your work with honesty and dignity — the work will speak for you.” I try to show up grounded, do the work well without thinking much about the acknowledgment of what I do. Surprisingly effective. Very low drama.
Q. What is the one emerging trend or idea in evaluation that you are most excited to dive into during your internship?
A. Evaluation that finally admits systems don’t behave themselves. I’m excited about complexity-aware, systems-informed evaluation that follows feedback loops, power, relationships, and unintended outcomes — instead of just reporting the impact of interventions. Basically: fewer tidy logframes, more sensemaking circles, and a healthy respect for “well… that wasn’t in the theory of change.”
Get hyped for more narration from Nishat in I2I’s 2026 newsletters!
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. 😉
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Until next time,
Intention 2 Impact
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