About Jane
Jane Reisman, Ph.D., advises on social impact by drawing on three decades of leadership at the intersection of strategy and evaluation. She also continues to collaborate with ORS Impact, the strategy and evaluation firm she founded in 1989 and led for more than 25 years. Under her leadership, ORS Impact engaged with many of the world’s leading organizations in the social and environmental impact arenas and created a set of innovative field resources related to measurement, learning, evaluation, and strategic planning that propel social-change agents onto faster and smarter paths to success.
Advising
To facilitate strategic learning, decisions, and actions
In her role as advisor, Jane guides the creation of measurement and evaluation systems that facilitate strategic learning and lead to better decisions and actions. She designs theories of change that become roadmaps for high impact and often serves as a thought partner to promote innovative approaches to better address the complex, volatile, and tenacious threats and inequities that characterize our modern world.
Building
To develop practical and innovative approaches
Jane has been a major contributor to building the field of measurement, learning, and evaluation. She partnered with United Way of America in its pioneering training in program and system outcome measurement; advanced results-based budgeting and management for the United Nations; worked with the Annie E. Casey Foundation to develop leading-edge evaluation approaches to advocacy and policy change; designed MLE plans emphasizing the intersection of strategy and data-driven decision making for major foundations and an array of NGOs, and has led hundreds of evaluation projects aimed at strategic learning and adaptive leadership practices.
Creating
To develop resources for the field
Jane developed several resources with colleagues at ORS and in the social impact field, including Getting More From Measurement: Five Insights for Social Innovators; Getting Started: A Self-Directed Guide to Outcome Map Development; A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy; I2L2 Impact=Influence +Leverage+Learning; and Streams of Social Impact Work: Building Bridges in a New Evaluation Era with Market-Oriented Players at the Table.
