Pathways to becoming an internal evaluator: Perspectives from the Australian non-government sector

There is a lack of clarity around intra-organisational evaluation roles and pathways into these roles in non-government organisations (NGOs). This article presents three auto-narratives from the authors who are working as internal evaluators in the NGO sector. We examine this phenomenon of role ambiguity by exploring our evaluation journeys and struggles to find identities in the formal evaluation community. Findings from the auto-narratives identify implications for the evaluation field regarding professionalisation. This article explores how aspects of professionalisation, such as clarification of roles and tasks of internal evaluators, could facilitate their recruitment, assess credibility and guide career trajectory. Elucidating internal evaluation career pathways contributes to the evaluation discipline by providing information relevant for evaluation capacity building, evaluator training, and the professionalisation movement.