Meet Gifty Amarteifio

What brought you or led you to TerraLuna? How did you get here?

I landed at TerraLuna the way most wide-eyed graduate students find anything of value, through my academic Advisor, Dr. Jean King.

I was in search of a graduate assistantship that would allow me to learn more about evaluation, apply what I was learning outside the classroom, and gain new skills. Jean connected me to one of TL’s founding members, Nora Murphy Johnson, who invited me to join their band of evaluation misfits. Through this group and the work we collaborated on, I was introduced to the kind of evaluation that couldn’t be contained in the pages of a textbook. At this time, I signed on to meet weekly in coffee shops and kitchen tables across Minneapolis – because we didn’t yet have an office - to ideate, think evaluatively, and provide learning and insights that would shape a school district-level Education Strategy for culturally responsive education.

I knew it was the kind of work I would always want to do. I knew it was a place I could provide great value. I knew I would be working with peers who I would learn a great deal from. What I did not know was just how much the cooperative and the people would shape me as an individual and as a professional.

Why has it become your evaluation/facilitation home? Why did you commit, stay, choose to become a member? What about why we choose to work this way?

Since 2013 when I attended my first TL meeting, I’ve been a contractor, briefly an employee, a member-owner, and a board member. At each stage, my commitment to shaping TL to become the kind of workplace I and others would want to work at has grown. As a contractor, TerraLuna was an opportunity to bring to life what I was learning in my graduate school courses. As an employee, it was a safe container for me to explore the possibilities of evaluation work- to trial and error, and to learn “how to” better than before. As a member, TerraLuna has been a canvas to create. TerraLuna enabled me to shape and mold the kinds of work I wanted to do and the organizational structure I wanted to be in. 

I decided to make TerraLuna my professional home because of its core value of social justice and equity, and the members of the cooperative. Our commitment to social justice and equity shapes the work we do and don’t do, the organizations we partner with, and our approach to the work. Being part of a values-forward cooperative was and continues to be of great importance to me. 

Further, our membership is made up of individuals who found evaluation through traditional academic pathways and those who did not. It’s made up of people who landed at TerraLuna by way of journalism, economic non-profits, public policy, public health, education, and clinical psychology. This eclectic group of members has brought unique talents to TerraLuna’s approach to evaluation. As a collaborative, we move beyond traditional evaluative approaches and thinking to bring a lens from many different disciplines, backgrounds, and lived experiences. We embody the reality that there is more than one way to do evaluation. This diversity has continued to bring fun to the work that we do and has expanded the boundaries of what we are capable of achieving.