About Us
Visual Insights People prepare and inspire organisations, leaders, and teams to build capacity with 'pictures and stories' and 'bite-sized' evaluation tools.
Our pictures, stories, and people approach to evaluation
Visual Insights People are passionate about working alongside leaders, teams, and organisations to
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Grow evaluation capability;
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Strengthen the work you do; and
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Increase the difference you make.
We build capability by providing you with
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Fun, engaging, and simple-to-use tools;
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Pictures and stories of evaluation; and
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Training, team workshops, coaching and mentoring grounded on academic rigour and real-life examples.
We believe that engaging people from government agencies and non-government organisations in bite-sized packages and steps of learning while doing evaluation will build and sustain your evaluation capacity and improve performance.
The story of Visual Insights
Visual Insights originated in 2013 from the recognition that evaluation owned and led by organisations and agencies is more successful, sustainable and impactful than external driven evaluation projects. At the heart of our story is our drive to build your evaluation capacity by bringing pictures, stories and engagement tools from beyond evaluation.
Combined with practical, visual evaluation tools we bring to our shared toolkit, expertise and tools from:
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Film and videography
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Cartooning, animation and virtual reality
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Graphic communication
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Systems thinking; and
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Organisational psychology
And over recent years, we have established digital online capacity that we share with our clients to build their strength in online teamwork and collaboration.
What's new in 2022?
Our team
Visual Insights People are a team of experienced evaluation, communication, digital, and systems thinking professionals. We share the common vision of improving the lives of people experiencing vulnerability by contributing to the strengthening of community organisations and government agencies that serve them.
Our director, Dr. Samantha Abbato, is an evaluator with a depth of expertise across a range of qualitative and quantitative disciplines, and a passion for effective communication and evaluation skill building using a pictures and stories approach and increasing the academic rigour of evidence.
Our approach
6 Ways We're Different
We understand that successful outcomes evaluation takes more than developing and implementing an evaluation strategy. We know that strategies imposed on organisations for measuring and monitoring outcomes often fail. We help organisations build a workplace culture that supports sustained outcomes measurement. The change management support we provide yields organisational benefits that far exceed the provision of an outcomes evidence base.
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WE BUILD WORKPLACE CULTURE
We use visuals to translate the language and purpose of outcome evaluation to your ‘organisational language’. Visual tools include videography as the centrepiece with the accompanying best practice methodologies including online interactive methods of engaging staff visually in a community of practice. We draw on photo-voice and other photographic methods, graphic design and best practice data visualisation for representing qualitative and quantitative evaluation data.
2
WE USE PICTURES
Conventional monitoring and evaluation approaches favour indicators and survey tools to measure them. Whilst acknowledging the importance of survey and quantitative methods for outcome measurement, we understand the value of evaluation stories in evidencing the role of programs and services in contributing to improving people’s lives. We upskill staff in listening to the voice of clients for promoting context rich and authentic stories of change.
3
STORIES ARE AT THE HEART
Visual Insights People believe that learning is fundamental to growth and performance improvement and that shared learning is key to building a strong organisational outcomes evaluation culture. We work with you in partnership to continually build your learning and capacity until you have less need for us as external expertise, remaining ‘close by’ and accessible for the times you need our technical expertise and support.
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A CONTINUED LEARNING APPROACH
Sam Abbato (Director) and Visual Insights Associates have substantial academic training and experience in university research and teaching in Public Health, Social Sciences, Psychology, Graphic communication, Geography and Systems approaches. We apply academic rigour to real world evaluation - a bridge from community service delivery to academic quality outcomes evidence. We regularly partner with clients to publish and present findings in peer-reviewed journals and at International conferences.
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ACADEMIC QUALITY APPLIED TO REAL LIFE
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WE CUSTOMISE OUR
APPROACH TO OUR CLIENTS
Valuing our relationships with the people of the organisations we partner with is at the core of everything we do. Whilst retaining our independence and rigour, we become part of your organisational team, supporting organisational advancement through understanding your people- both clients and staff. We work in a participatory action-focused way to build skills, identify tailored outcome models and establish a clear pathway to outcome measurement and data use.
Our Vision, Mission and Values
Visual Insights People are passionate about working alongside leaders, teams, and organisations to
-
Grow evaluation capability;
-
Strengthen the work you do; and
-
Increase the difference you make.
We build capability by providing you with
-
Fun, engaging, and simple-to-use tools;
-
pictures and stories of evaluation; and
-
training, coaching and mentoring grounded on academic rigour and real-life examples.
We believe that engaging people from government agencies and non-government organisations in bite-sized packages and steps of learning while doing evaluation will build and sustain your evaluation capacity and improve performance.
Our Vision
People and agencies providing services to the community are confidently and competently applying an embedded outcomes evaluation system to share evidence of the difference they make and to reflect on and improve their service delivery.
Our Mission
We partner with the people of community organisations to increase their social impact using a multi-faceted outcomes evaluation approach that combines rigorous evaluation method with staff skill building through pictures and stories, coaching and mentoring.
Our Values
RIGOUR: Visual Insights evaluation is founded on quality evidence based data.
TRANSPARENT/HONEST: Visual insights is committed to accountability, and we help the organisations that we work with to create organisational structures that push their employees to reflect honestly on their successes and failures.
RELATIONSHIPS: Visual Insights recognises that relationships form the foundation of any organisation, and we work to strengthen these through our collaborative workshops and mentoring initiatives.
