Co-Lab organizations aren't opposed to evidence. But many describe a funding environment where the same standard of proof is expected regardless of an organization's size, stage, or operating reality. When a randomized controlled trial is treated as the baseline for credibility, the cost of proving impact can start competing directly with the cost of delivering it.

StrongMinds has treated close to 1.5 million people for depression across several African countries. Even at that scale, producing an up-to-date RCT means redirecting significant resources away from programs.

For organizations working at smaller scales or earlier stages, that kind of trade-off is even harder to absorb.

When Evidence Demands Assume The Work Stands Still

A related tension that comes up in these interviews is that most formal evidence processes assume a program will remain consistent long enough to study it over several years. But many of the organizations in the Co-Lab are constantly refining how they work, which creates a difficult choice: hold the model steady to satisfy an evidence timeline, or keep improving it.

StrongMinds has shortened its group therapy model from 16 weeks to six over the course of 13 years, with early pilots exploring whether a single session could be effective. That kind of ongoing iteration is part of what makes the program work. It also makes conventional evidence timelines a poor fit.

What Proportionate Evidence Looks Like In Practice

Practitioners aren’t asking to abandon rigor. They want to fit the evidence approach to the question at hand. Some Co-Lab organizations have spent years working out what that means for them, arriving at monitoring practices that are useful without being extractive.

In this kind of approach, data collection should inform decisions on the ground, not just satisfy reporting requirements. It's a different orientation from evaluation designed primarily to produce publishable findings.

For younger or youth-led organizations, the gap between what funders expect and what's realistic can be wider still.

Scale The Ask To The Stage

Across these conversations, the message is fairly consistent. Organizations want to be accountable for their work. They also want expectations for evidence to reflect the realities of their context and their resources. When the proof costs more than the program, the balance is off.