I've just been at a meeting of the International Human Rights Funders Group in a hot and sticky New York. My job there was to speak about the challenges of evaluating human rights projects, based on work I’ve done in the past year or two evaluating projects funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies. It's clear that US funders have 'got' the notion that evaluation should be about learning, and not zero-sum success/failure judgements, though the issue of just when a funder is justified in withdrawing funding is still left hanging. However, recent experiences at the hand of evaluators, rather than as one, have left me pondering their responsibilities, and those of the funders who hire them, as historians. I can’t recall who said that 'journalism is the first rough draft of history'; but for social change projects funded by trusts, evaluators may be the first drafters. And if it matters at all to those that come after us, then they had better get it right. To do that, they need good evidence which tells the story as it was perceived at the time. (I recall a fellow student in the Law Department at Manchester in the 60s trying to sell his old legal history book. We were always told that it was dangerous to buy anything but the latest edition of all our textbooks - probably just a racket to keep academics in royalties - but he got round this by advertising it as 'old edition but more valuable since written nearer the time of the events').
Rather like those novels which have the same episode described from different perspectives (this is a great example) peoples' perceptions of how change came about can vary enormously. I have very sharp memories of an organisation set up around 1990/91 and am clear – had thought I was clear - about how it began. Till the evaluator rang, and told me how she thought, or had been told, it began. Which was totally different from what I believed (and actually still believe). And I was there at the time! Can my memory really be so dodgy? (rhetorical question; no hurtful comments needed). I'm sure that there are PhDs about this kind of issue, but for the moment, at a more prosaic level, it seems to me to highlight the need for funders to keep good records, not just with an eye to the auditors and the Charity Commission, but with an eye to history.
So: here's my idea – every organisation, including of course grant-making trusts, should appoint someone on its staff to be its history champion. This should be an enthusiast – someone who cares about history. They would, as it were, be licensed to ask awkward questions about what's being kept where, whether records are clear enough for future generations to understand what really happened, whether a story has been told and captured. As evaluators will tell you, just keeping minutes of meetings isn't much help; you need to be able to see the wood (the full story) rather than the trees (the minutes). I can hear both readers of this blog yelling at their screens – hasn't he heard of knowledge management? (and I must say, mother, that I'm surprised you have). Well, yes, I have, actually; but this isn't about managing knowledge for contemporary use; it’s about making sure that posterity has a fair chance of finding out what really happened.
And I know I'm right about that project, so there.
[This blog will now be doing whatever blogs do when they go on holiday. But there's an even better one to keep you entertained in the meanwhile, which you can find here. I will resume in the autumn unless I get a lot of encouragement/bribes not to.]
