our Monitoring & Evaluation
Tracking Actionable Impact to Strengthen Community Resilience
a new way to track our work
At Climate Cardinals, we are committed to ensuring that our work — from translating climate information to empowering youth leadership — drives tangible, community-level resilience.
Our internal monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems track impact across all programs, align with strategic goals, and ensure we remain accountable to the communities we serve.
Fiscal year 2025 marked a major evolution: we transitioned from "reach" metrics to "change" metrics to better capture meaningful outcomes.
Reach metrics track how many people we engage (e.g., participants, views, resources distributed).
Change metrics measure the difference our work makes (e.g., shifts in knowledge, behavior, leadership, and resilience).
This evolution ensures we focus not only on reach, but on the depth and quality of our impact.
Charles Nwaeze, Chapter Leader at the University of Jos
Former Fellows Quincy and Bernice at the Partnership for National Trails System Workshop (Phoenix, AZ, USA)
Driving Impact Through Learning, Feedback, and Strategic Alignment.
Our approach to M&E is grounded in continuous learning, real-time feedback, and a strong alignment with strategic plan. We focus on:
Strategic Target-Setting: Using a balanced scorecard to set annual impact targets.
Quarterly Revisions: Adjusting targets based on program learning, feedback, and external changes.
Ongoing Monitoring: Monthly progress checks, a mid-year review, and a full analysis after the annual report.
Continuous Learning: Regular feedback from grassroots partners, chapters, fellows, and volunteers to strengthen programs and refine metrics.
Adaptive Management
Program Monitoring Systems
Translation Partnership with a global NGO at Biodiversity COP (Cali, Colombia)
Grassroots Translation Partnerships
All grassroots partners submit impact reports after six months measuring how translated materials have supported resilience, adaptation, advocacy, and education.
Volunteers from the Tribhuvan University Chapter (Kirtipur, Nepal)
Chapters Program
Our 110+ youth-led chapters meet quarterly to coordinate and share learning.
Chapters submit impact and feedback reports twice a year focused on localized education, mobilization, and resilience-building.
Chief of Staff Samrah Khan at US Climate Action Network Annual Meeting (Newark, NJ, USA)
Youth Fellowship Program
Fellows submit biannual reports focused on leadership development.
We are building an alumni community to enable 2- and 5--year follow-ups tracking long-term leadership and impact.
Dashboards, Data Transparency, and Real-Time Reporting
Building Accessible, Live Impact Tracking
We have developed a live internal dashboard to track real-time progress across translations, youth leadership, chapters, and partnerships.
The dashboard is accessible to all core team members to drive data-informed decision-making.
Auto-generated monthly reports will support program leads and senior leadership in monthly strategy reviews.
After internal refinement, we plan to publicly share key dashboard data on our website to strengthen transparency and accountability.
We are committed to presenting our impact in accessible, easy-to-understand formats through plain language, visual storytelling, and clear data visualizations.
Former Fellow Gaines Carter and Chief of Staff Samrah Khan (New York, NY, USA)