Over the past decade the responsibilities of leaders and managers in not-for-profit organisations have changed significantly: now they are often invited to take a seat at the executive table and participate in solving complex organisational problems. At the same time, most traditional models and new ‘cutting edge’ solutions often fail to deliver on what they promise. This leaves them with a profound challenge: how can we stay away from trends and quick fixes, and instead use valid and reliable evidence to support the organisation?

In response to this problem the idea of evidence-based decision-making has evolved, with the goal of improving the quality of decision-making by using critically evaluated evidence from multiple sources – organisational data, professional expertise, stakeholder values and the scientific research literature. While this sounds sensible and straightforward, gathering, understanding and using evidence is challenging in many ways and requires a set of specific skills. This executive course will develop your evidence-based skills and enhance your understanding of how an evidence-based approach can be used to support organisational decision-making.