Dan Wilson

Biography

Results-focused credentialed evaluator with over 25 years’ experience leading learning and strategy development in non-profit and government agency contexts; a highly skilled facilitator, specializing in Emergent Learning and Developmental Evaluation.

I know the challenges of strategizing, evaluating and adapting from both sides of the funding table. My background combines grassroots, not-for-profit experience with 17 years of experience at the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF), an agency of the Government of Ontario.

I led the OTF’s evaluation and learning strategy to support the delivery and measure the impact of granting programs. In response to seeing a number of excellent studies “gathering dust,” I transformed our evaluation agenda to focus on actionable knowledge—making sure the evaluations and studies contributed to evidence-based decisions that improved granting practice.

I am a credentialed evaluator with specialist training in Developmental Evaluation from the University of Waterloo and SiG@Waterloo (2010-11), where the focus was on evaluating and supporting social innovation and complex systems change.

In addition, I’ve studied how to design better decision-making environments, reduce bias and inaccuracy, and make organizations smarter at the Harvard Kennedy School (2017).

I support non-profit and charitable sector organizations to design and measure success. By building the right decision-making environment and linking strategic intent, effective learning and impact measurement,  I believe organizations can better innovate, achieve results, and tell the story of their impact.