My Story

Ronda Zakocs founded Insight Evaluation after a career in academia. In 2008, recognizing a need for her expertise among nonprofit organizations and foundations, she jumped from Boston University’s “ivory tower,” trading teaching and research for more hands-on consulting. After convincing her family to relocate to her home state of Oregon, Ronda began pursuing her passion for social change by applying her evaluation expertise and academic background to complex social issues. 

From the start, evaluation was the core of Insight Evaluation.  She soon realized evaluation wasn’t enough.  Among the issues: 

• traditional program evaluation limits social innovation; 

• systems change efforts are better poised to address the root causes of social inequities; and 

• expert facilitation aids groups to co-design impactful social change strategies and evaluation frameworks. 

To address these learnings, Ronda expanded her consultation expertise around facilitation, strategy, and systems change. Consequently, she approaches social change strategy with an evaluation mindset, a unique combination that allows her clients to become more impactful and effect greater change in their communities.  

In 2018, to better reflect the breadth of her consulting practice, Insight Evaluation was renamed Insight for Action. 

In 2019, Katie Winters, PhD joined as a principal and then departed in 2025 to found Artichoke Evaluation.