From Extraction to Affirmation: Trust-Based Evaluation and Authentic Data Collection

Garrett Mason  I  June, 2025

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Trust-based evaluation is a collaborative, equity-centered approach to learning and accountability that shifts power away from extractive evaluation methods and instead embraces shared learning among funders, researchers, practitioners, and communities. Rooted in principles of mutual respect, relationship-building, and continuous learning, trust-based evaluation is designed not to “measure for judgment,” but to learn for improvement, especially in the pursuit of long-term, systemic social change.

Unlike traditional models where evaluators drop in at specific project phases to collect data in isolation, trust-based evaluation centers the voices, experiences, and knowledge of those most affected by the systems being examined. It involves evaluators embedding themselves in ongoing work, participating in meetings and listening sessions, understanding context, and fostering feedback loops that build capacity and advance justice.

It is especially committed to dismantling the top-down, white-dominant, performance-oriented logic that often defines philanthropic and academic evaluation—where metrics are prioritized over meaning and reporting often benefits institutions more than impacted communities (Trust-Based Philanthropy Project).

How Do We Develop and Implement Trust-Based Evaluation?

  1. Co-create Evaluation Goals with Youth and Community Partners:
    • Evaluation should begin by identifying what matters most to the people most impacted, such as young people with lived expertise of homelessness.
    • Youth should be involved in defining success, selecting methods, and interpreting results (Gavilanes, SREE).
  2. Embed Evaluation in Day-to-Day Practice:
    • Trust-based evaluation is not a one-time audit, it’s a continuous relationship. Evaluators should regularly engage in meetings, site visits, and conversations with program staff and participants to better understand the evolving context (Trust-Based Philanthropy Blog).
  3. Prioritize Learning Over Compliance:
    • Shift evaluation away from proving and toward improving. This means encouraging honest reflection, experimentation, and adaptation, even if the outcomes don’t neatly align with funder expectations.
  4. Use Mixed Methods that Respect Lived Experience:
    • While quantitative data has value, qualitative, narrative, and arts-based methods often capture the complexity and humanity of youth experiences better. Trust-based models recognize storytelling as valid and rigorous evidence.
  5. Align Stakeholder Incentives:
    • Bridge the gap between practitioners who need program-level, community-relevant insights and researchers who face pressure to produce academic outputs. This requires intentional collaboration and negotiation of mutual goals (PMC article).
  6. Invest in Capacity and Relationships:
    • Funders must support evaluation as a learning journey, not a transactional requirement. This includes resourcing organizations for reflection, data collection, and analysis, not just outputs.

Why Should We Utilize Trust-Based Evaluation in Youth Homelessness Prevention and Diversion?

  1. It Advances Equity and Youth Voice:
    • Youth experiencing or at risk of homelessness are often marginalized in systems that define success for them without involving them. Trust-based evaluation creates space for youth-led insight, allowing programming to be shaped by those most affected.
  2. It Moves Us from Symptom Management to Systemic Change:
    • Traditional evaluation focuses on short-term outcomes, while trust-based approaches help us ask deeper questions: What structural conditions caused this housing instability? What relationships and resources sustained this young person? This broader lens is necessary for lasting impact.
  3. It Builds Stronger, More Responsive Programs:
    • When practitioners are partners, not subjects,in evaluation, they are more likely to engage deeply, act on findings, and innovate. Programs become more adaptable and attuned to real-time community needs.
  4. It Reduces Harm and Restores Agency:
    • Extractive evaluation can retraumatize or dehumanize youth by treating them as data points rather than full people. Trust-based methods uphold dignity and create opportunities for healing, especially when youth are paid, credited, or otherwise empowered to co-lead the learning process.
  5. It Supports Funders’ Own Learning and Accountability:
    • If we aim to end youth homelessness, not just fund temporary solutions, then funders must learn alongside their grantees. Trust-based evaluation facilitates reciprocal accountability and helps funders understand the systemic impact of their investments.

Incorporating trust-based evaluation as a standard operating principle in youth homelessness prevention is not just a methodological choice, it’s a political and ethical stance. It says that youth matter, that their stories are valid evidence, and that learning for liberation is more important than data for control. If we are serious about ending youth homelessness, we must be equally serious about transforming the way we evaluate progress, rooting it in trust, equity, and shared power.

– Garrett Mason

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MEET THE author
MEET THE author

Garrett Mason

Garrett Mason, III is a multi-hyphenate creative, advocate, and youth leader dedicated to advancing cultural equity, social justice, and community empowerment. As a published author, recording artist, fashion designer, and ballroom house father, Garrett blends art and advocacy to inspire systemic change. He consults nationally on youth homelessness prevention, legal equity, and generational wealth building, centering lived experience and creative expression as tools for healing and liberation. His work amplifies marginalized voices and reimagines futures where all people thrive in unconditional love and unapologetic joy.