An evolving dialogue has emerged among advocates, evaluation professionals, and funders concerned with evaluating advocacy. An earlier focus on questions regarding whether it is possible to evaluate advocacy has led to a proliferation of new tools that are aimed at responding to the real and perceived unique challenges to evaluating advocacy.

In this article, Jim Coe and I argue that this emphasis on the development of tools may be overstated. When examining how advocacy can best be served by evaluation, we suggest that a disproportionate focus on tools can cause other important issues to be overlooked. Not everything that can be measured matters and not everything that matters can be measured.

Below this block of content there are two rows, one with three columns, the other with two. If your post has two cover images (if, for example you have published in two languages) you’ll want to delete the 3-column row and use the 2-column row. Simply click just above the image rectangle, then hover over the image. A box of images will show up. Click on the three dots (sometimes called the shish-kabob or snowman) and select ‘Remove Block.’ If you’d like to use the three column row, simply follow the same instructions to delete the unwanted row.