Sarah Robens (She/Her)

I was excited by the vision of RE!NSTITUTE and by the fact that this is an organization that is producing fantastic results and really changing systems!  I have worked in evaluation and learning for over 20 years in many different sectors, and countries, often with a strong focus on unpicking systems change.  And leading on from my evaluation work, I have also worked on developing approaches to spread and scale innovations and projects that really work.  So I have a solid background in understanding what works, but also what doesn’t, how, and why.  When I was introduced to RE!NSTITUTE it was apparent to me that this organization has brought together many of the ingredients I have seen needed to make meaningful, lasting systems change.

As the MEL Global Director, I have the fantastic opportunity to support how we learn within and across our 100-Day Challenges. Monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems are central to our 100-Day Challenges, as they not only help our teams to keep track of where they are in their challenge journey but also for our coaches to understand the experience of the teams and our systems to recognize how their systems are changing. We put in place systems to capture but also (and most importantly) to use what we learn about how change is happening, to continuously review our approaches and build on what we are doing to maximize our effectiveness.

I love the opportunity I have to bring out the L in ME. In other words, really embrace and put into practice a structure that values and uses the learning that emerges from the Challenges as well as more widely.  This is genuinely a learning organization!  We have taken on monitoring, evaluation, and learning in an exciting and innovative way - putting it front of place so that we can continuously improve our approaches, and find out not just what happens when we trigger systems change, but how, why and for whom.  This is an organization that is really living its vision with a fully committed and insightful team, and it’s exciting to be part of that.

Walking our lovely dog with my family on the beach or in the woods, sometimes in a theater, and often reading or listening to books and podcasts.