Black Walnut Consulting

Evaluations should be useful to the people that matter the most: on-the-ground staff and the people and communities they serve. My goal is that by the end of our work together, you and your team will feel more empowered in the evaluation process and approach your work as evaluative thinkers, strategically using data to inform programmatic improvements, make decisions, secure funding, and grow. Principal and founder Dara Murray has worked as an evaluator for mission-driven organizations for over a decade, supporting nonprofits and foundations through dynamic training and quantitative and qualitative data analysis that has resulted in organizations securing millions of dollars in funding to scale regionally and nationally and improving their processes and outcomes along the way. Building from her experience as a national trainer, Dara has helped 200+ teams promote a unified culture of reflection, learning, and data-informed decision-making. In addition to supervising the program evaluation process, I’m adept at synthesizing results and presenting them in an accessible way, working collaboratively with internal and external partners to package technical findings for consumption by a broader audience. A lifelong Girl Scout whose path was paved by the opportunities low- and no- cost afterschool and summer programs provided her, Dara is particularly invested in working with youth-serving programs that take an asset-based and equity-focused approach to their work in historically and systemically marginalized and underserved communities. Her colleagues describe Dara as a convener, motivating, coaching, facilitating, and engaging expertise across divisions and throughout ranks.