Evaluation and Reflections
As a movement for community led systems change, ChangeFest activities embody the practices of the work.
A key part of this is to regularly reflect on activities and undertake external review and/or evaluation – both of which help understand what works, what doesn’t and how we do it all better.
Some of these interactions are below.
ChangeFest24 Independent Evaluation
The partners for ChangeFest24 were also very pleased to be able to work with Clear Horizon to conduct an independent evaluation of the ChangeFest24 Gathering on Latji Latji country.
The ChangeFest24 evaluation was undertaken with the desire to understand whether ChangeFest24 achieved its desired outcomes for the event, including successful collaboration between the ChangeFest national backbone and the local hosts, and to reflect on what the results of ChangeFest24 mean for the national movement.
Designed in collaboration with ChangeFest24 partners, the evaluation draws on multiple sources of evidence collected from participants and collaborators both during and after the event.
Read the Evaluation Executive Summary
Read the Evaluation Full Report
CFI Reflections on ChangeFest24
Through the process of reflection and evaluation of ChangeFest24, Collaboration for Impact (CFI), as the National Convenor of ChangeFest, sought to make sense of what we have seen, heard and experienced, what it means for the Movement and more broadly what it tells us about the change required at multiple levels of the eco-system.
Overall, four themes emerged:
- Governing across cultures and purposes: The importance of creating governance and strategy that both engage diverse voices, particularly First Nations voices; and that supports both relational and technical accountabilities.
- Building relationality: Recognising and valuing efforts to understand, strengthen and change the relationships between the parts of the system to change the system.
- Resourcing the necessary: ChangeFest has successfully gained multi-year funding in the last year, however more work is required to fully support the work, recognising the intensity of effort required to build a movement for change and make change.
- Embracing complexity: Embracing a complexity of perspectives and activities to learn by doing and create change.
Looking ahead, the ChangeFest movement is deepening its impact by expanding beyond the annual event into a year-round ecosystem of learning, engagement, and action. The vision is clear: by fostering a space for deep listening, truth-telling, and respect for diverse perspectives across different types of power and across cultures, we can create conditions for communities to determine their own futures, be places where everyone belongs and thrive.
Read the full reflection here
ChangeFest Five Year Review
“A moment that showed that transformation is possible”
The ChangeFest Five Year Review was commissioned to understand what changes ChangeFest has aimed to contribute to over the last five years, how it has worked to support change, and to what degree it has achieved this.
The Review continues to inform the strategic direction of ChangeFest, including its purpose, governance and decision making, resourcing and local partnerships. The Review was undertaken by Lisa Ryan (Hecate Consulting) and draws on a desktop scan, ChangeFest evaluation data, a workshop with ChangeFest24 Mildura partners, and 1:1 interviews with ChangeFest stakeholders, including Elders, practitioners, funders, and convenors.
Critically this review firmly endorsed the shift from an annual event to a movement for change. The findings of this review have guided CFI in its work as the national convenor since 2023.
Read the ChangeFest Five Year Review Summary
Reflective Practice
In addition to formal reviews and evaluation, ChangeFest embeds reflective practice across our activities. This includes:
- Learning Network Reflect and Design – more to come on this soon
- CF24 Reflections: with partners and with CFI staff
We are always happy to receive your reflections on ChangeFest and your feedback – if you have any comments, ideas, thoughts etc, please get in touch at changefest@changefest.com.au – we would love to hear from you.
Governance
Following the first ChangeFest event in 2018, the National Convening Group re-formed to continue the purpose of the ChangeFest Statement in working with ChangeFest Elders. This Group served as an important start-up national governance group and we acknowledge the valuable contributions of those who played such an important establishment role alongside CFI: Logan Together, Griffith University, Kowa Collaboration; Health Justice Australia; LaTrobe University and everyone who worked so tirelessly to bring ChangeFest to life.
In 2021, the National Convening Group reflected on their role and in 2023 it was a unanimous decision to pass the responsibility for national convening to Collaboration for Impact (CFI). This was in recognition of the role CFI played since the commencement of ChangeFest and the needs of the Movement into the future. The 2023 Five Year Review was commissioned at this time to provide an evidence base for the work and the CF24 Advisory Group was formed as an interim measure to guide both the completion of the Five Year Review and provide oversight for the 2024 Gathering on Latji Latji country.
Since 2024, Collaboration for Impact (CFI) has been working with the ChangeFest National Elders Group to establish the next iteration of collaborative governance, underpinned by the principles of the ChangeFest Statement.
Building on this work, the ChangeFest Governance is now entering its next phase including:
- ChangeFest Elders and Leaders Group - Elders and Leaders from across all ChangeFest Gatherings have been meeting regularly to provide cultural guidance and leadership to ChangeFest.
- ChangeFest Advisory Group - building on what worked well in the 2024 pilot, this is a diverse group of community and institutional leaders working at local to national scales to advise and steward the ChangeFest strategy and direction.
- ChangeFest25 Gathering (19-21 November, WA) - partnership governance between CFI, the local co-host, Imagined Futures, in relationship with the local ChangeFest Elders and Leaders Group.
- Learning Network Reflect and Design Process - a very enthusiastic and committed group of people from the Movement came together to help design the next strategy and focus of the Learning Network. A big thank you to those that contributed to this process.
Collaboration for Impact
Since the very beginning of ChangeFest, Collaboration for Impact (CFI) has held important technical and fiduciary roles for ChangeFest and has been a significant funder of ChangeFest.
Collaboration for Impact is committed to serving the purposes of ChangeFest. For over ten years, CFI has been supporting people to establish and deepen collaborations for systemic change in ways that centre community leadership. CFI is the National Convenor for the ChangeFest Movement and partners with local collaborations and initiatives to co-produce annual ChangeFest Gatherings as well as leading the ChangeFest Learning Network, the influencing agenda and supporting the collaborative governance of the movement.