MEL Learning & Practice Series
An inspirational learning & practice series on monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) to explore how you understand your contribution and learn from your ambitious systems change work.
intermediate
MEL Learning & Practice Series
2024/2025
Why we're gathering
The School of System Change is launching a practitioner-focused learning and practice series on Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) for MEL specialists and changemakers; and specifically those working at the intersection of systems change, understanding impact and learning.
This offering responds to increasing interest, demand and need for practitioners to develop MEL strategies that suit the complex contexts they work in. Our monthly learning and practice series will support you to apply more systemic approaches to short- and long-term initiatives that are working to understand how they are contributing to change and what learning systems enable continuous adaptation and improvement.
This series builds upon the momentum from the School’s pilot MEL Inquiry Group in Systems Change in autumn 2023. At the end of the inquiry group, we published a series of seven 'MEL in systems change' articles.
The series
We’re hosting five monthly online 2-hour sessions (October 2024 - February 2025) with experienced contributors from across the field to explore how they work with MEL. Together, we will dive into the nuance of systems-informed approaches, to unpick some of the dilemmas and ignite inspiration for our future practice - bringing a systems approach to leverage MEL(A)* for change.
*We feel the 'A' for Adapting is important to bring out here even though we have called this a MEL series. We would like to point out that we can learn all we want but we also must consider what we are doing with that to shape our next step.
The five sessions
Each session features experienced practitioners who are deeply grappling with these questions and showcases where they are in their exploration; as well as connecting, reflecting and sharing practices with peers who are working through the messiness and emergence of this burgeoning field. We take an approach in our series striking a balance between sharing multiple methods and ideas collectively with discussion and supporting us to explore these for practice.
The series explores four inquiries (why, what, who and how) and is followed by a sensemaking and weaving session to close. The last sensemaking session is open to anybody that has participated in at least one of the four sessions.
We have outlined the inquiry questions and short description of each session below. We will update practitioner-speakers as we confirm our contributors.
1. Why Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Matters
How might we place a complexity-aware and systemic approach at the heart of our MEL practice?
Join to explore why MEL matters and how central it is to take a systemic, relational and living systems approach, and shift from a dominant mechanistic paradigm to understanding change.
Date: Thu 17 October 2024
Time: 10:00 ET / 15:00 BST / 16:00 CEST / 19:30 IST
Check your time zone
Contributors
2. What Systems Change Contribution Is All About
How might we take a systemic perspective to understanding our contribution to systems change?
Join to explore how we can harness different ways of understanding our contribution to change, through systemic impact frameworks, developing indicators, learning questions, and more emergent approaches to harvesting stories, and the dilemmas that emerge through this.
Date: Thu 21 November 2024
Time: 10:00 ET / 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET / 20:30 IST
Check your time zone
Contributors
3. Who Needs to Be Involved and How Do We Work Together
How might we take a participatory approach to the design and delivery of our MEL approach?
Join to explore how we navigate the realities of MEL in the context of power, from questions of accountability and learning, to whom and for what, and different modes of engagement, including where this work takes place.
Date: Thu 12 December 2024
Time: 10:00 ET / 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET / 20:30 IST
Check your time zone
Contributors
4. How to Embed MEL Into Organisational Life
How might we cultivate processes for MEL through an integrated learning approach?
Join to learn how we can bring MEL into our everyday work by uncovering the multiple methods we can use in implementing our approach in our organisations and change work so we can better strategise, act, reflect and adapt together.
Date: Thu 16 January 2025
Time: 10:00 ET / 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET / 20:30 IST
Check your time zone
Contributors
5. So What: Sensemaking and Weaving
How might we make sense and take forward our learnings into action from this series?
Join us for a closing session exploring how we can use the experience of this series to reflect on what we have learned about ourselves, our organisations, and work in the context of leveraging MEL for change.
Date: Thu 20 February 2025
Time: 10:00 ET / 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET / 20:30 IST
Check your time zone
Contributors for this session will be shared soon.
(The closing sensemaking and weaving session is free and open to anybody that has participated in at least one of the first four sessions. Participants will receive an invitation to this session nearer the time.)
Please note all MEL Learning & Practice Series sessions will be recorded to be accessed by attendees, and potentially shared publicly in future.
How we're gathering
This series is a ‘choose your own path’ learning experience which means you can join the whole journey or choose to participate in the sessions that feel most relevant and alive to you.
We will convene once per month for two hours. Each session will include:
- Framing and an introduction to the session topic
- Inspiration, dialogue and applied learning opportunities with experienced guest contributors
- Space to reflect with peers on how the topic relates to your different contexts and experiences
- An invitation to develop your next micro or macro experiment or practical application of this topic in your context
The closing sensemaking and weaving session is free and open to anybody that has participated in at least one of the first four sessions. Participants will receive an invitation to this session for Thursday 20 February 2025 nearer the time.
Who is gathering
Is this series for me?
The series is intended for a range of experience including practitioners who are starting out in MEL or systems change to those who have led MEL efforts in large-scale change initiatives. We believe each session would be beneficial to those who have:
- Knowledge, understanding and practice in impact and evaluation
- Interest in systems change and working in systems
- Some experience applying MEL to sector / thematic challenges / large-scale change
- A project or initiative(s) where they can bring insights and ideas into practice
We are intentionally keeping the 'prior experience and knowledge' broad as we would like to encourage those from different and diverse ways of knowing and working to join us for an expansive and fruitful conversation.
Contributors
In each session, the hosting team will be joined by experienced guest contributors who will bring in personal anecdotes, stories, and ‘how to’ practical routes for engaging with the topic being explored. Contributors for each session will be announced on an ongoing basis as we weave the learning journey together, so watch this space.
Hosting team
Enrol
To take part, you can join the whole journey (at a discounted price) or sign up to individual sessions and choose to participate only in the areas that feel most relevant and alive to you.
Team and group enrolment is available. Please reach out to the School at [email protected] for group pricing as well as the option to add on team coaching to help the team ground learnings into projects or initiatives.
Course Fees
The fee for this series is offered on a sliding scale. Please select the option that is most appropriate for you, depending on what you can afford. Course fees are per one individual, not one team or organisation.
For the full series
- Regenerative: £550 GBP
- Supporter: £425 GBP
- Supported: £275 GBP
For individual sessions
- Regenerative: £150 GBP
- Supporter: £125 GBP
- Supported: £75 GBP
Which option is right for you?
Regenerative: We encourage philanthropy, corporations, and the public sector to join our series on the regenerative rate. Your registration will support others to participate. This rate reflects the true cost of the series.
Supporter: We encourage those working in the small to mid-size for-profit organisations, charity sector and community organisations (typically a participant joining to financial sponsorship from an employer) to join our series at this rate. This rate reflects most of the cost of the series.
Supported: The supported rate enables those who are independent or freelance, or who have limited funds to invest in their learning and development. Each cohort has a limited number of places for those coming in on the supported rate. When possible, we encourage those with some flexibility to join us on a supporter rate.
For School alumni, we are delighted to offer a 20% discount for the full series or individual sessions. This discount is available for changemakers who have completed one of our School courses (Basecamp, Delta, Spark, and Investors in Change series). Please enter code MEL2425 at checkout.
VAT does not apply.
No refunds are available for the series, however you can transfer your ticket to another individual to join. Email the School team at [email protected] if you have any questions about this.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about the MEL learning & practice series please contact the School team at [email protected].
If you would like to discuss additional coaching or a Learning & Practice Partnership to support your learning, get in touch with Sean at [email protected].
Equity & Diversity
We seek to create safe and brave spaces for participants from different backgrounds and lived experience to engage in learning together. We acknowledge the power and responsibility we hold in our role as a convenor and learning provider, placing multiple ways of knowing and awareness of difference as fundamental design principles in our programmes.
Read more about our commitment and journey around equity and difference.
Accessibility
If you will need additional support for your wellbeing or access needs, then please let us know as soon as possible, so we can factor this into our session design. You can email us at [email protected] or we are happy to arrange a call to discuss how we can support your learning. A member of the School team will be on hand throughout the sessions if you have any questions or concerns to raise.