An annual reflection

January 2026 | 5 min read

By Elaine Stavnitzky 

From Manuals to Meaningful Practice

In the past few years, organizations are increasingly engaging me as a coach to support them in applying feminist and/or community-centred approaches to their monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL). Over the course of my career, I have probably written enough guidance notes, frameworks, and manuals to fill an entire room if they were printed out. Like many people, I have also been on the receiving end of these documents—trying to assemble furniture with an instruction booklet that assumes far more spatial reasoning than I possess, or flipping through a thick, repetitive car manual while a mysterious dashboard light blinks impatiently. These experiences have taught me two things at once: clear, concise, step-by-step guidance really matters, and it is incredibly difficult to get right. What looks straightforward on paper often becomes confusing when theory meets the messiness of real life. It is for this reason that, more and more, the evaluation and learning work I am drawn into is not as a technical expert delivering instructions, but more about serving as a coach—walking alongside others as they navigate complexity.

Why Coaching Matters in Complex Contexts

In my personal life, I rely on coaches in different areas because translating advice from books, podcasts, or social media into my own specific context is rarely straightforward. A simple example is my garden. One end of the flower bed receives has more desert-like conditions, while the other behaves more like a bog. Choosing plants that will thrive in each section—while also considering whether they are native to my area, bloom at different times, complement each other in colour and shape, and require a realistic level of care—quickly becomes overwhelming. Without support, it turns into a cycle of trial and error (mostly error), costing time, money, and no small amount of frustration. Working with a nature-scaping gardening coach has been transformative, not because they handed me a single “right answer,” but because they helped me make sense of complexity. Coaches bring the right-sized information at the right time. Elevating Voices for Change may share a basic tool, but together we develop good practices for applying that tool in different situations, like the feminist spectrum.

My garden bed’s transformation with the support of Cardiff Naturescaping. Photo 1 – Dug out bushes that weren’t thriving (planted by previous owners to just “look nice” when we bought the house without consideration for the soil conditions) and to tackle the horse tail that was invading. Photo 2 – Added French drainage underneath the soil to help it drain better to minimize “bog” conditions. Photo 3 – use of native plants that love the conditions in that bed and additional rock border to mitigate grass and horsetail from invading again. Photo 4 – added variety of plants and using rocks from my garden to give the new plants time to fill in. I would never have come up with these solutions on my own. Can’t wait until next season to see how it thrives.

 Learning Through Experience and Adaptation

My coach has seen what works—and what does not—in many different situations. They come equipped with the right tools for different tasks and, just as importantly, with the experience to adapt when things do not go according to plan. Sometimes that means adjusting a design because the soil behaves differently than expected; other times it means literally digging down and discovering a massive root exactly where something new was meant to grow. Instead of forcing a pre-set plan, the work becomes about responding thoughtfully to what is actually there. This is what Elevating Voices for Change associates bring to their work: a toolkit of participatory tools and approaches, years of lived experience across diverse contexts, and the ability to adapt from a shared framework rather than apply it rigidly. To learn how we can apply those in supporting organizations, check out our services.

Feminist and community-owned MEAL processes are like a garden: tools matter, but sometimes local knowledge can be enhanced with adaptive coaching to further nurture plants to beautiful blooms according to their environment.

Adapting to Complexity in Feminist and Community-Owned MEAL

This ability to adapt to complexity is essential in feminist and community-owned MEAL work. What works in one context will often not work in another. While patterns and shared principles certainly exist, meaningful practice always requires adaptation. Feminist and community-owned MEAL asks us to pay close attention to power, voice, and lived experience, which means we resist one-size-fits-all solutions and we remain open to learning as we go.

When Plans Meet Reality

The process is also continually evolving. No matter how robust our plans, unexpected realities emerge—sometimes gradually, sometimes abruptly. The COVID-19 pandemic was an extreme and global example, but more common disruptions include shifts in funding priorities, changes in political or social contexts, people transitions and movements, or environmental disaster. These moments can render even the best-designed frameworks inadequate if they are treated as fixed rather than as living tools meant to evolve with context.

Guidance as a Living Tool

Documentation and guidance still have an important role to play. A well-crafted guide can support clarity, consistency, and shared understanding. However, I prompt organizations to embed guidance into ongoing learning, reflection, and innovation cycles. Without this, documents risk becoming static artifacts—referenced occasionally, but disconnected from practice. When guidance is paired with coaching, peer learning, and opportunities to adapt, it becomes a resource that grows alongside the work rather than an irrelevant deliverable.

Centering Local Knowledge and Multiple Forms of Expertise

Central to this approach is asking the right questions and working with local, contextual experts. No single “expert” can fully understand the diversity of realities across the different contexts in which programs operate. This is especially true when we take an inclusive, intersectional lens seriously, acknowledging how gender intersects with race, class, disability, geography, age, and other dimensions of identity and power. Local knowledge, lived experience, and community ownership are not add-ons; they are foundational to meaningful MEAL practice.

Looking Forward

As we look toward 2026, our aspiration is to lean further into this way of working—less focused on delivering answers, and more committed to creating the conditions where collective sense-making, accountability, and transformation can take root and thrive.

Watch this space for ways we will intentionally:

• Elevate the voices of people with lived experience as they evaluate programs they have participated in;
• Collaborate with others to create learning circles for community-owned, feminist MEAL practice; and
• Openly share tools and experience.

Dedication

This blog is dedicated to all those who have entrusted me with walking alongside them in their feminist- and community-owned MEAL journeys throughout 2025. It has been a year of listening, adapting, unlearning, and learning together.