“The Global Centre for Pluralism contracted Ripple through an open process to conduct a 5 year program evaluation for the Centre in 2022. The Ripple team— including Michelle Garred, Katie Butler, Patrice Brodeur and Malaka Refai—were exceptional to work with. They brought a great deal of professionalism, expertise and insights into the evaluation, developing a methodology and process that were both rigorous and innovative. They produced a careful and critical assessment of the development, relevance and impact of our work, and have contributed substantively to how we develop our strategic plan and monitoring and evaluation framework for the coming 5 years. The team went above and beyond in terms of sharing their expertise and insights with our staff for the evaluation. The evaluation process surfaced important insights on behavioural changes that have been seen in our program work to date and contributed to the development of our forward Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Strategy. We look forward to future collaborations with Michelle and the entire Ripple team!”

Meredith Preston McGhie, Secretary General, Global Centre for Pluralism 2023

“The Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers hired Michelle Garred as a Critical Friend Evaluator for the EU- funded SEA-AIR project in spring 2020. Michelle completed a mid-term evaluation in September 2020 and a final evaluation in June 2021 in collaboration with associate Malaka Refai, working…across ten countries in South and Southeast Asia. The remote Outcome Harvesting processes, focus groups, interviews and workshops were quite inclusive and participatory, despite the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic. The recommendations mixed practical adaptations that could produce immediate improvements with long-term planning to improve our outcomes and impact. The final evaluation can help us accomplish our organizational mandate by further prioritizing fellows and other the local changemakers as the main focus, while retooling the overall project timeline, cutting-edge publications and policy engagement to be informed by the work of the changemakers. The lessons learned will continue to inform future peacebuilding efforts throughout South and Southeast Asia.”

Philip Gassert, Project Manager, The Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers 2021

“After COVID-19 upended our original plans, Michelle gamely took on the challenge of conducting a remote evaluation across two countries, three partners, four locations and five languages. She deftly guided the team through refining the study design, ensuring a collaborative and participatory process throughout the evaluation…While we’d been confident that she would be a good fit for the assignment given her unique expertise in interfaith peacebuilding, we were particularly pleased with the quality of the outcomes under the difficult circumstances. From Michelle’s incisive analysis and clear writing, we gained insights on overall project outcomes as well as the nuances between locations. Just as important, though, was Michelle’s ability to extrapolate from this evaluation to tease out implications for our overall portfolio. She raised important points and possible action steps related to the peacebuilding-development nexus, advocacy, gender dynamics, conflict sensitivity and more. We will be able to apply these in future programs. I look forward to the next opportunity to work with Michelle!”

Nell Bolton, Senior Technical Advisor, Justice & Peacebuilding, Catholic Relief Services 2021

“We began by seeking a consultant to help us evaluate our pilot project in Iraq…Michelle was a great ally from the beginning, helping to think through possibilities despite our lack of experience in peacebuilding evaluation, and drawing out the best possible methodologies…Through Michelle’s inquisitiveness, attention to detail, always asking the right question and ability to analyse, consolidate and draw out threads of information, we were able to both evaluate our project and begin looking at new methodologies…The second significant collaboration has resulted in a Toolkit on Outcome Harvesting + Attitude Change… a qualitative process that we can use in evaluating our softer programming within Tearfund.”

Mariam Tadros, Co-Lead Fragile States Unit & Peacebuilding Specialist, Tearfund 2020

“The Women in Faith Leadership Fellowship, in its pilot year, needed someone who could appropriately and sensitively approach the question of monitoring, evaluation, and learning with a group of Catholic Sisters. Michelle immediately came to mind due to her depth of experience in faith-responsive approaches. Michelle developed a comprehensive MEL plan for the pilot fellowship. She demonstrated her unique and specialized experience by suggesting tailored methods that were feasible and relevant to the fellows while also producing the thorough data needed. In particular, this included an Outcome Harvesting approach through creating a Change Harvesting Worksheet, analysis, and follow-up interviews with the fellows. This allowed us to investigate changes happening almost in real-time as the fellows started to make impacts in their communities following their fellowship experience. It produced learning that we would have entirely missed otherwise and demonstrated impacts that we had not expected to see so soon after the fellowship. I greatly appreciated the partnership with Michelle and hope we can work together again in the future.”

Dr. Olivia Wilkinson, Director of Research, Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities 2024