What is Narrative Evaluation?
“All of this information is great, but what does it all mean?”
What if the reporting world had:
- Fewer pages within deliverables
- Greater curation
- Storytelling that the public could understand
- Collective sense-making..?

Our definition:
A form of inquiry that relies on various forms of storytelling to unpack and link organizational efforts and investments with results, outcomes, and impact.

Its added value:
Integrates evaluation, learning, and strategy & organizational development.
Facilitates meaning-making to inform program planning, decision-making, and strategy.
Can work alongside and enhance current evaluation efforts.
ii Labs further optimizes it:
We use data-driven, digital, and interactive storytelling.

We can provide spatial analysis (GIS), visualizations, and journalistic methods to develop and vet narratives.

We engage & iterate with stakeholders to identify the heart of the story ···

··· and make meaning that inspires next steps.
Here’s just one example:
Typical quantitative insight
gleaned from prior evaluation reports:
“From 2010-2020, our grantees advocated for and contributed to the development of over 25+ statewide policies to support the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in California.”

ii Labs asks deeper questions:
- So what? To what end? What’s the impact?
- Which policies? Are they all equal?
- What’s the story behind this?
- What was their role? How did they contribute?
- What does this mean in the scheme of health equity?

Further research
- 1:1 interviews
- news media searches
- key decision-makers engaged on the storyline


A story about ACA’s implementation in California:
The Foundation made a “big bet”: invested $100M of its corpus in implementation ($225M+ in total).
That bore results:
- 78% increase in Medicaid enrollment;
- Uninsured rate fell from 17% to 7%;
- New policies closed Federal loopholes negatively impacting payers;
- California became a “national model” for expanding coverage;
- Paved way for expanding coverage to undocumented children and young adults.
YOU NEED