“Value comes from people. If we're going to understand the value of something, we have to do more than just measure it. We have to engage with people to find out what matters to them.”
Value for Investment in Evaluation
Julian King · Public Policy Consultant | Evaluation and Value for Investment
About this episode
In this episode, we sit down with internationally recognised evaluator Julian King to explore what it really means to assess value. Moving beyond traditional cost-benefit analysis and social return on investment, Julian introduces his award-winning Value for Investment (VfI) approach. It's an interdisciplinary framework that combines economic rigour with stakeholder perspectives and explicit evaluative reasoning. We also unpack rubrics, participatory evaluation, and Julian's idea of "Cubist evaluation," which emphasises multiple perspectives and collective sense-making in practice.
Key takeaways
Value for Investment shifts the focus from money to meaning
Instead of getting hung up on the money, VfI encourages you to define a clear value proposition upfront and then evaluate how well it's being met using explicit criteria and standards.
Rubrics make evaluative reasoning transparent
Rubrics help structure judgements by defining what "excellent," "good," and "adequate" look like, but ultimately people make the final call. The rubric is just there to guide the conversation.
Economic methods like CBA and SROI share the same underlying logic
Whether you call it cost-benefit analysis or social return on investment, what matters is doing it well: engaging with stakeholders and being rigorous with the numbers.
Participatory evaluation helps findings land better
When stakeholders are in the room throughout the process, difficult conclusions emerge naturally rather than arriving as unwelcome surprises in a report.
"Cubist evaluation" emphasises multiple perspectives
Borrowing from the art movement, Cubist evaluation is about honouring diverse viewpoints, challenging dominant narratives, and leaning into collective sense-making rather than just adding up individual answers.
Topics covered
- Value for Investment
- Economic Evaluation
- Cost-Benefit Analysis
- Rubrics
- Mixed Methods
- Evaluative Reasoning
- Participatory Evaluation