Welcome to Notes from the Field

Hi, I’m Taylor. Researcher, evaluator, health communication scholar, and founder of TMG Consulting. I’ve spent my career helping mission-driven organizations make sense of their data, communicate their impact, and build strategies that actually hold up in the real world. Before launching TMG, I spent years deep in academic research, community-based public health work, and organizational consulting, collecting a lot of observations along the way about what works, what doesn’t, and what the sector rarely talks about openly.

Notes from the Field is my attempt to change that, at least a little.

Because after years of doing this work, I’ve noticed some patterns that don’t get enough airtime. The gap between what organizations think their data is telling them and what it’s actually telling them. The way a beautifully crafted evaluation report can sit completely untouched on a shelf. The difference between organizations that use evidence to drive real decisions and those that collect it because a funder asked them to. The quiet frustration of program staff who care deeply about their work but genuinely don’t know how to measure it. The tension between doing good work and being able to prove it.

These aren’t niche problems. They show up everywhere, in organizations of every size, budget, and mission area. And they rarely get addressed directly because nobody wants to be the one to say the quiet part out loud.

That’s what this newsletter is for.

Notes from the Field is my space to share honest insights, practical tools, and real talk about evaluation, data, and impact. No jargon. No overly polished takes. Just grounded, useful thinking from someone who is out there in the field every day working through these same challenges alongside the organizations I partner with. Some posts will be practical and tool-focused, walking you through frameworks, approaches, or questions worth asking. Others will be more reflective, zooming out on trends, tensions, and patterns I’m noticing in the sector. All of them will be direct, accessible, and worth your time.

If you’re a nonprofit leader trying to get a handle on your organization’s impact, a program staffer building your evaluation chops, or just someone who cares about making evidence more useful in the social sector, you’re in the right place.

To kick things off, my next post is already live: Your Theory of Change Isn’t Enough. It’s a topic I’ve been sitting with for a while, and I have a feeling it’ll resonate with a lot of you.

I’m really glad you’re here. Let’s get into it.