In collaboration: our approach to learning partnerships
Joanna Knight sitting on sofa
At merl, learning partnership sits at the heart of what we do. It isn’t a consultancy product or a reporting exercise — it’s a way of working alongside organisations as they make sense of complexity and navigate change as it happens.
Being a learning partner means joining teams in the work itself: helping them pause, test assumptions and turn raw information into insight. It’s learning as a shared practice, not a service delivered at a distance.
Beyond consultancy: a relational practice
Traditional consultancy often arrives with answers. Learning partnerships begin with questions. We work as critical friends — supportive, honest and committed to the organisation’s purpose. Our role is to create the space, structure and trust that allow teams to explore what’s emerging, challenge their thinking and strengthen their learning culture. This relational foundation is what moves the work beyond evaluation and into genuine partnership. It’s about learning together, not handing over findings.
"It was great to work with merl to create a MEL framework for our project that was realistic and manageable for us as a small, busy team. Being a pilot project, it was particularly useful to have an external learning partner to give us an additional perspective and support us and our members and partners to reflect on the work. merl were flexible and collaborative, enabling us to adapt the project in response to the challenges of the pandemic. We ended up with an accessible and useful final learning report that has informed our internal planning as well as discussions with funders about future work in this area."
Nina Murray, Head of Policy and Research, ENS
A Theory of Change that adapts with you
Our starting point is often a Theory of Change, but not as a static diagram tucked away in a drawer. We co-develop it with teams, use it to surface assumptions and revisit it as the context shifts. A living ToC becomes a shared compass. It helps people see where their thinking holds, where it’s being challenged and where adaptation is needed. In learning partnerships, this revisiting is what keeps strategy grounded in reality rather than aspiration.
Seeing the whole system
Complex work is shaped by relationships, power dynamics, incentives, histories — the things that don’t show up in a logframe. We bring systems thinking into learning partnerships to help organisations see patterns, understand interdependencies and identify leverage points. This broader lens supports better decisions, not because it simplifies complexity, but because it helps teams navigate it more consciously.
“It was very valuable for us to have merl as a learning partner. Not only did they produce robust case-studies, but they also helped us to reflect on what we should expect out of singular case-studies and how this fits within our Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning system.”
Valeria Izzi, Senior MEAL Advisor, Elrha
Supporting adaptation in real time
Where traditional evaluation looks backwards, developmental evaluation looks at what’s unfolding now. It gives teams regular, practical insights they can use immediately, not months later. Our learning partnerships create feedback loops:
short cycles of evidence gathering,
structured reflection sessions (“so what / now what”),
and collective sensemaking that feeds directly into decisions.
This is what helps organisations adapt in real time — with proactive clarity.
Culture matters as much as method
Tools alone don’t create learning. People do. We pay as much attention to the relational conditions as to the frameworks: trust, psychological safety, curiosity and space for honest conversation. We help teams surface tacit knowledge — the insights, instincts and experience that rarely make it into reports but often drive the most meaningful learning.
A strong learning culture makes change possible. Our role is to nurture it.
What learning together looks like
In practice, our learning partnerships often include:
co-created learning agendas tied to planning and decision-making moments
facilitated collective sensemaking sessions
ongoing critical-friend conversations
ToC co-development and iterative reviews
facilitated evidence-based learning cycles
space for reflection on culture and collaboration
It’s a rhythm of inquiry and adjustment. A way of working that supports people to learn better together.
In essence
Learning partnerships are collaborative, flexible and relational. They help organisations stay connected to emerging insights and shape their next steps accordingly. At merl, this is the practice we bring: grounded in systems thinking, shaped by feminist, anti-oppressive and trauma-informed approaches, anchored in relationship and always oriented toward evidence-based decision-making.
If your organisation is looking for a partner to support this kind of learning, we’d love to talk.
