Terms of reference for evaluators and steering committees

This resource is a compilation of three separate terms of references to support different components of evaluations of Open Society Foundations’ Economic Justice Program.

This resource is part of the MEL toolkit for grantmakers and grantees resource collection.

Authors and their affiliation

Andrea Azevedo, Megan Colnar, Jay Locke, and Robin Varghese (Economic Justice Program MEL Team, Open Society Foundations)

Key features of this set of terms of reference documents

Between 2016 and 2022, the Open Society Foundations’ Economic Justice Program commissioned several independent evaluations of its work and strategies. These evaluations aimed to enable the program to better assess progress toward its overall mission and to build evidence for adapting and evolving its strategic approach. While EJP’s MEL team was involved in some aspects of the evaluation process, it was important to EJP that the evaluations themselves were undertaken by independent experts and advisors.

This resource is a compilation of three separate terms of reference to support different components of EJP evaluations. Note: The Economic Justice Program was created in 2019, through a merger of the Fiscal Governance Program and the Economic Advancement Program.

• Terms of reference for baseline strategy evaluation of the Fiscal Governance Program 2018–22 strategy
• Terms of reference for Fiscal Governance Program (FGP) close-of-program evaluation
• Terms of reference for the EAP and FGP evaluation steering committee

How have you used or intend on using these TOR resources?

EJP’s MEL team developed and used these terms of reference (TORs) to agree within the program about what was needed from external evaluators and evaluation steering committees—and to communicate the scope of work to potential applicants.

Why would you recommend it to other people?

These resources provide a helpful overview of the purpose of and expectations for independent baseline and endline evaluations of a grant-making program, and the external roles required to undertake and support them. Donors and other organizations looking to enlist external evaluators or establish an evaluation steering committee can adapt these TORs directly. They may also be useful for thinking more generally about external evaluations, their research questions, and their scope.