Change Exploration Conversations
Written by Women Win
About Change Exploration
Change Exploration is a feminist and decolonised approach to monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL), adapted from Outcome Harvesting. It collects evidence of what has changed and works backwards to understand whether and how an initiative contributed to those changes. As a participatory method, it centres participant voice and uses processes of reflection and collaboration to explore change, recognising the knowledge and expertise of participants as essential to developing a deeper, more nuanced understanding of why changes have occurred, through collective discussion and shared sense-making.
Change Exploration x ONSIDE
Change Exploration was carried out with ONSIDE grantees through two online sessions in March 2025. Grantees were asked to write two Change Stories, one describing a change in the individuals or communities they work with, and one capturing a change on an organisational level. Stories were shared in small peer groups (Change Story Circles) for refinement and feedback, before the full group came together for Collective Sense-Making — discussing the significance of each change and the extent to which ONSIDE's funding and accompaniment contributed to these occuring.
Individual Impacts
Through grantee Change Stories, we see four interconnected areas of change:
Increased Confidence & Agency
Participants moved from low confidence and limited voice to actively expressing themselves, making independent decisions and influencing those around them. Change Stories showed girls, women and non-binary people taking risks, speaking up and stepping into public space with greater assurance.
Expanded Leadership & Economic Opportunities
Grantees intentionally expanded leadership pathways, supporting participants into roles as coaches, peer mentors and facilitators, and integrating them into formal governance structures. This created livelihood prospects and greater influence in decision-making spaces.
Greater Access to Safe & Inclusive Spaces
Advocacy by grantees resulted in tangible policy change — including anti-harassment policies in public facilities. The intentional creation of inclusive, play-based spaces enabled marginalised groups, including people with disabilities and LGBTQIA+ individuals, to feel accepted and able to fully 'take up space'.
Improved Gender Norms & Community Wellbeing
Grantee-led awareness campaigns and the visible presence of girls, women and non-binary people shifted community attitudes. Families, including mothers and aunts, began exercising their own right to play. Participants also reported improved mental health and became peer educators in their communities on gender-based violence and sexual reproductive health.
Organisational Impacts
The ONSIDE fund also catalysed significant organisational change. Across three
dimensions - effectiveness, resilience and sustainability - grantees demonstrated
meaningful growth:
More Effective
Grantees consolidated strategies, expanded teams, hired specialist coaches, increased staff knowledge through training and improved internal coordination. Flexible funding enabled new approaches tailored to the communities they serve.
More Resilient
Grantees adopted more inclusive governance structures, integrating women with disabilities into Boards and General Assemblies. They built intentional leadership pipelines and shifted towards community-based structures, enabling them to respond creatively to crises.
More Sustainable
Transitioning from informal initiatives to structured organisations strengthened credibility, attracted new partnerships and opened access to diversified funding, reducing dependency on short-term funding and building a foundation for lasting impact.
What the Evidence Tells Us
Through collective sense-making, grantees agreed that increased self-confidence, access to safe spaces, improved mental wellbeing and strengthened knowledge represent ONSIDE's strongest and most direct impacts - the changes that are foundational for advancing gender justice, and where ONSIDE's funding and accompaniment demonstrably contributed to these changes.
Critically, these changes are interconnected. Foundational changes, such as access to safe spaces and increased knowledge, enable higher-level outcomes like confidence, agency and leadership. At the organisational level, strengthened organisational capacity leads to greater visibility, stronger partnerships and more diversified funding. Change in one area tends to unlock change in another, creating a compounding effect over time.
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