Saturday workshop: A Hands-On Introduction to Ripple Effects Mapping

A Hands-On Introduction to Ripple Effects Mapping

with Janel Hansel, MPA, Grant Street Consulting

Ripple Effects Mapping (REM) is a participatory evaluation method that elevates stories, relationships, and reveals unanticipated impact. This interactive 2-hour workshop includes a live mini-REM session, allowing participants to experience the method directly and leave with tools to apply it in their own contexts.

This 2-hour workshop provides an experiential introduction to REM, originally developed by Extension practitioners at Washington State University and the University of Idaho. REM blends appreciative inquiry interviews with visual mapping to reveal intended and unintended impacts, strengthen relationships, and support strategic learning. This workshop is designed with evaluation professionals in mind—including those grounded in quantitative methods who are looking for ways to capture complexity, meaning, and unexpected outcomes. Ripple Effects Mapping (REM) complements traditional measurement by providing contextual, relational, and narrative data that deepen the interpretation of numerical findings. Participants will learn how REM can reveal emergent themes, help refine logic models, generate new indicators, and surface outcomes that surveys or performance metrics may overlook.

The format allows participants to experience a live mini-REM session, giving them practical, grounded insight into how REM actually unfolds with real groups. Through this hands-on experience, participants will see how stories become data, how connections are visualized, and how collective sense-making reveals insights that can inform evaluation, strategy, and organizational learning.

Examples will be shared, along with practical tools for adapting REM to different settings. We will review sample agendas, appreciative inquiry prompts, mapping templates, thematic analysis structures, and guidance for integrating REM findings with existing qualitative and quantitative data.

Workshop Objectives

1.        Understand the purpose of Ripple Effects Mapping and the kinds of situations and questions it works best for—such as capturing stories of change, surfacing unanticipated impact, strengthening relationships, and supporting strategic learning.

2.        Learn the core components of REM: prompt development, appreciative inquiry story harvesting, mapping ripples, theme development, and meaning-making.

3.        Participate in a facilitated mini-REM experience to see how stories are used and how insights emerge visually and collectively.

4.        Examine examples of REM maps, reports, and implementation models.

5.        Identify considerations for preparing and facilitating REM, including group composition, power dynamics, hybrid/virtual adaptations, and time requirements.

Participant Take-aways

• Firsthand experience of REM in action—engaging with story prompts, mapping connections, and identifying emerging themes.

• An overview of the REM workflow from planning to reporting.

• Editable tools and templates: sample agendas, appreciative inquiry prompts, mapping structures, participant instructions, and reporting formats.

• Ideas for how REM can support evaluation, strategic planning, community engagement, coalition strengthening, internal learning, and cross-sector storytelling.

• Strategies for adapting REM to various contexts: small nonprofits, coalitions, foundations, education, government, and cross-system collaboration.

The workshop balances conceptual grounding with hands-on practice, ensuring participants leave not only understanding REM but also feeling confident about when and how to use it.