In this episode, hosts Carolina and Vidhya dive deep into collectivism in relation to the (neo)liberal ideology of individualism that underpins the nonprofit/ nongovernmental industrial complex and evaluation. We invite Naaima Khan, a strategist and evaluator, to discuss the implications of collectivism in the context of structurally-focused analysis and action. The conversation weaves personal reflections, historical definitions, and critiques of language to explore themes of leadership, accountability, and culture. We discuss the need to shift how success is defined, acknowledging the discomfort that often accompanies true collectivism.

In this episode, hosts Carolina and Vidhya reflect on our first year building a solidarity economy through this podcast. We connect recent topics—collective knowledge-making, individualism, and the idea of an economy—to each other, evaluation, accountability, and resource distribution. We note the years of work ahead, as today's socio-political situation results from decades of deliberate effort, not recent elections. Grateful for your feedback, we commit to being accessible to everyone fighting within the nonprofit industrial complex.

In this episode, Carolina and Vidhya engage in dialogue with Justin Laing of Hillombo Consulting to understand the idea of an economy, which is foundational to building a solidarity economy. We delve into the way knowledge—or perhaps narrative—is produced within racial and gendered capitalism and the role evaluation plays for the owning and ruling class. We close with an invitation to imagine what knowledge work could look like, and what individual roles we each may play, in alternative economic structures.

In this episode, hosts Carolina and Vidhya unpack one of the central pillars upholding racial and gendered capitalism and neoliberalism: individualism. We reflect on how individualism is associated with freedom, AKA “the West,” and contrasted with tradition, AKA “the rest.” We interrogate how it shows up in our personal lives and is built into our work—including NPIC and evaluation’s training, practice, and literature as well as existing field-building and change efforts.