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Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  1 

 

 

MERL in the Time of COVID-19:  

Four Case Studies 

 
Compiled and Edited by Rodney Green, Nathan Mallonee,  

and Kristen Check 

 
With Contributions from Rebecca Mentzer, Dr. Lincoln Lau, Kendall 

Wilson, Allan Kakinda, Peter Ndungu, and Dr. Subodh Kumar 
 
 

Accord Network organizations are facing many new challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This has required rapid adaptation in many areas, including in monitoring, evaluation, research, and 

learning (MERL). In this paper, four case studies of Christ-centered NGOs are presented to provide 

a glimpse into how different organizations are adapting their MERL approaches and utilizing their 

internal MERL resources in new ways. The authors then reflect on these case studies and compare 

the approaches taken with emerging best practices from the broader international relief and 

development sector. In addition, the authors share guidance on how Christ-centered organizations 

should adapt MERL approaches according to good principles in a broader effort to discern God’s 

leading in the midst of challenging external circumstances, internal organizational constraints and 

opportunities, and an unknown future.  

 

 
Introduction  

In April 2020, the Accord Research Alliance 

(ARA) hosted two webinars with Accord members to 

discuss and learn about monitoring, evaluation, 

research, and learning (MERL) responses to the 

COVID-19 pandemic. The information gathered from 

the two webinars provides a good overview of the 

institutional context and background to the four case 

studies presented in this paper.  

The first webinar was facilitated as an open 

platform where participants from the ARA community 

shared how COVID-19 was affecting their monitoring, 

evaluation, research, and learning (MERL) practices 

within their organizations, and how they were adapting 

to meet the challenges and changes required by their 

pandemic response. There were over fifty attendees, 

representing organizations such as Food for the 

Hungry, HOPE International, Life Water, Living 

Water International, Hope Walks, Water Mission, 

 
1 The Accord Research Alliance (ARA) is an interest-based Accord Network Member Alliance designed to foster 

collaboration.  The mission of ARA is to facilitate a professional community that collectively improves how to build 

cultures of learning and measure what matters in Christ-centered relief, development, and advocacy through various 

platforms of idea sharing to encourage, connect, equip, and/or inspire.  Professionals that engage with the ARA may be 

part of organizations that are members of the Accord Network, but it is not required.   

Compassion International, CURE International, 

Partners Worldwide, Eido Research, and others. 

Members shared resources with one another and 

discussed solutions.  

For the second webinar, which was open to the 

entire Accord Network (not just MERL practitioners),
1

 

ARA facilitated a discussion on how MERL can be 

adapted in the age of COVID-19 and serve as a 

powerful tool to address current realities. At the 

beginning of this webinar, participants were asked a 

series of polling questions to show how they were 

adjusting their MERL practices to COVID-19 realities. 

A majority of the forty-four participants who responded 

to the poll expressed they have had to adapt their 

approaches to data collection or evaluation (80%), while 

only a small percentage reported either postponing 

activities (14%) or that activities were still fully 

operational and unchanged (7%). 

https://accordnetwork.org/


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(1), Summer 2020  

Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  2 

 

For those who are adapting their approaches, 

responses were almost evenly split on the ways in which 

those adaptations are taking place. The majority (74%) 

of participants indicated they were re-thinking their 

methods for collecting data during this time, likely due 

to lockdown restrictions and social distancing 

guidelines. Interestingly, 60% of participants also said 

they were “re-thinking the ways the M&E function can 

support the wider organization.” 

Participants were then asked to respond to the 

question poll with one word that best described how 

they were feeling about their MERL response to 

COVID-19. The word cloud in Figure 1 below shows 

the responses, with the larger words being mentioned 

more frequently. The sentiments expressed most 

frequently were of uncertainty, being overwhelmed, and 

exhaustion, though there also were more positive 

statements around refocusing, hope, curiosity, and 

opportunity.  

 

 

 

Figure 1: Word Cloud of Feelings Regarding MERL Response to COVID-19 

The feedback from the participants in the webinars 

indicated that, first, most organizations are adapting 

quickly to COVID-19 and are rapidly re-thinking many 

of their standard approaches to MERL. Also, while 

there is an undercurrent of optimism and hope, many 

staff of Accord Network and ARA organizations are 

also feeling overwhelmed or uncertain about the best 

approaches or paths forward. In an effort to provide 

some knowledge sharing and emerging best practices, 

the rest of this paper shares four case studies and 

additional guidance from the steering committee of the 

ARA for how to use MERL tools in ways that allow 

organizations to discern God’s direction and navigate 

these uncertain times.  

 

Organizational Responses 
Within the ARA, members are responding to the 

pandemic with the overall goals of continuing to learn 

about beneficiary and community needs, seeking to 

improve and learn from ever-changing program 

delivery models necessary in this VUCA context 

(volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous), and, in 

some cases, even re-envisioning the role of MERL 

within their organizations. 

Faith is a driving force pushing many Christ-

centered organizations and local faith partners to gather 

quality data so that they can improve their work and 

serve vulnerable populations more effectively. The use 

of data is part of a larger framework within decision-

making to discern God's direction. A helpful 

organizational metaphor for discernment is the sailboat, 

because it requires action and responsibility with a 

reliance and sensitivity to the wind that actually moves 

the boat. In the same vein, as part of regular activities, 

spiritual practices embedded within organizational 

practices acknowledge a dependence on God's wisdom 

and guidance. This fosters a heart posture of humility, 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(1), Summer 2020  

Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  3 

 

"for unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor 

in vain" (Ps.127:1).
 2

 

Below are four case studies from three Accord 

Network organizations and one ARA organization that 

are adapting MERL practices during this time. HOPE 

International, an organization that has long emphasized 

the principle and practice of listening, shares why 

listening to the field is one of the first things to consider 

doing during this time, and how they have adapted their 

listening practices for this unique season. For more 

information on how to improve your organization’s 

listening practices during COVID-19, visit 

Feedbacklabs.org: “Tips for Improving your Feedback 

Practice during COVID-19”. 

Many organizations are switching to phone surveys 

or other mobile platforms in order to continue 

collecting data for program monitoring and evaluation 

or for conducting research. International Care 

Ministries (ICM) is one organization that is rethinking 

‘business as usual’ for their data collection during 

COVID-19. In order to better communicate with their 

network of pastors and churches that serve vulnerable 

families, ICM further developed a Facebook messenger 

chat box, a tool that was already widely used. Many 

resources for making these adaptations exist, such as 

this Q&A on Mobile Phone Surveys from GeoPoll. 

There are also organizations looking for guidance 

on whether and how to carry out MERL activities safely 

in the context of COVID-19. Compassion International 

relies heavily on the best MERL practices they had 

established before the pandemic in order to effectively 

monitor and evaluate new interventions in the COVID-

19 era. Their case study offers an example of how 

principles and best practices are especially important in 

times of crisis to “discern” God’s direction. 

Finally, a number of organizations are repurposing 

their MERL data and/or staff. The case study shared by 

Food for the Hungry illustrates how a crisis can prompt 

an organization to re-purpose their MERL staff and 

practices to engage in different types of activities, such 

as big data or machine learning, in order more 

effectively to make decisions, move the organization 

forward, and serve vulnerable people. Big data provide 

new opportunities for organizations engaging in relief, 

development, or advocacy, as outlined in the World 

Economic Forum report (2012) “Big Data, Big Impact: 

New Possibilities for International Development.” 

 

 

 

 

 
2
 For principles and best practices on Christ-centered MERL, see Check, Green, and Kumar (2020). For a helpful resource on monitoring and 

evaluation guidance during COVID-19, see Catholic Relief Services (CRS) (2020). For a pithy overview of the importance of discernment for 

organizations, see Mellado (2019).   

Case Study 1: HOPE International  
 

The Mission 

HOPE International invests in the dreams of 

families in the world’s underserved communities as 

they proclaim and live the gospel. In sixteen different 

countries, HOPE shares the hope of Christ through 

biblically-based training, savings services, and loans that 

restore dignity and break the cycle of poverty.  

 

The Challenge 

Almost all countries where HOPE and HOPE’s 

partners operate have experienced significant 

disruptions to operations due to COVID-19. During 

lockdowns and restrictions on gatherings, many savings 

groups adapted how they met to abide by social 

distancing measures, and some stopped meeting 

altogether. Offices closed and transitioned to remote 

work, and field visits were limited. Staff and volunteers 

innovated in creative ways to stay in touch with clients 

and members. Many of the businesses of microfinance 

clients were shut down during government-imposed 

lockdowns.  

 

Programmatic Response 
As a development organization, HOPE savings 

group programs pivoted to supporting immediate relief 

through local church partners, while microfinance 

institutions demonstrated care for clients by extending 

grace periods and rescheduling loan terms for affected 

clients. Programs also developed new loan products to 

help clients’ businesses recover from the economic 

shock. Through these and additional efforts, HOPE 

has remained committed to rebuilding dreams together 

with churches and partners. 

 

MERL Adaptations 
HOPE’s core listening and evaluation tools and 

processes typically focus on better understanding 

stakeholder experience as defined by engagement and 

impact. HOPE believes listening is critical both as a 

posture and as a practice. HOPE paused existing 

activities to instead focus on the most relevant questions 

in this season and adapting the means of gathering 

information, both of which shifted significantly in light 

of COVID-19.  

The initial priority was listening to understand how 

clients and members were being impacted, how they 

were responding to the situation, and what needs they 

had. By listening both presently and proactively, HOPE 

gained information to help understand immediate relief 

and future recovery needs. A key aspect was ensuring 

https://feedbacklabs.org/blog/tips-for-improving-your-feedback-practice-during-covid-19/
https://feedbacklabs.org/blog/tips-for-improving-your-feedback-practice-during-covid-19/
https://www.geopoll.com/blog/frequently-asked-questions-mobile-surveys-faq/
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TC_MFS_BigDataBigImpact_Briefing_2012.pdf
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TC_MFS_BigDataBigImpact_Briefing_2012.pdf
https://www.hopeinternational.org/


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(1), Summer 2020  

Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  4 

 

information was accessible and analyzed quickly to 

rapidly inform strategy.  

 

Adapting the process for savings groups: Field visits are 

the typical method to gather information from savings 

groups. With most field visits cancelled, HOPE 

designed an entirely new monitoring system. A short set 

of questions was developed to understand if groups 

were still meeting, how members were supporting one 

another, and what their areas of need were. These 

questions were asked by telephone through the ministry 

structure. Responses were entered into Microsoft 

Forms for rapid analysis by the local savings group 

program staff, who utilized the automatic data 

visualization within the platform and conducted further 

segmentation of results in Excel. Of over 5,000 savings 

groups surveyed, 85% reported that they continued 

meeting, many in an adapted way to abide by social 

distancing guidelines. In response to requests for 

guidance from the savings groups, HOPE developed 

and rolled out a toolkit to help groups adapt their 

meetings to adhere to best practices for group 

gatherings, social distancing, and hygiene during 

COVID-19. 

 

Adapting the process for microfinance institutions: A 

client impact monitoring tool was developed to 

understand the effects of COVID-19 on clients’ 

businesses. This included asking questions around 

whether the business was open during a government-

imposed lockdown, exploring changes in income and 

expenses, and discussing the anticipated level of 

difficulty in reopening. Programs used either Microsoft 

Forms or Excel for data entry. In Excel, a data entry 

template with drop-down options for multiple choice 

questions and conditional formatting was developed to 

automatically score responses for an overall impact 

rating. PivotTables in the spreadsheet, needing only to 

be refreshed, enabled local decisionmakers to access 

information quickly. With feedback from over 11,600 

entrepreneurs, HOPE learned that the majority of 

clients surveyed were not able to operate their business 

during country-wide lockdowns. For those who were 

able to continue operating, many experienced 

decreases in income and/or increases in expenses. For 

example, in Rwanda, 72% of surveyed clients were not 

able to operate their business during the lockdown. Of 

the 28% who were able to continue operating, 79% 

experienced decreases in sales and 41% experienced 

increases in expenses. This information was used to 

adapt budget expectations and better understand the 

need for recovery lending.  

Rather than hiring third-party enumerators for 

independent listening, HOPE leveraged existing 

relationships and listening as an opportunity to 

reinforce and deepen relationships. Loan officers were 

calling clients they support, and church volunteers were 

calling savings groups they support. In this sense, the 

listening, monitoring, and evaluation team has 

expanded exponentially as many staff across the globe 

are seeing the integral role the team continues to play in 

listening well.  

In summary, HOPE shifted its focus to answering 

the most relevant questions in this season — namely 

around understanding current realities, opportunities, 

and needs — and built tools and processes to listen and 

respond quickly. In an ever-evolving situation, 

relationships are critical, and timeliness essential in 

ensuring responses that are relevant and effective.  

The listening, monitoring, and evaluation team 

views this pandemic as a culture-shaping opportunity, 

where the and role of listening, monitoring, and 

evaluation are vital to providing relevant services in a 

changing world. HOPE has always believed that 

listening is a core part of the ministry, not just an 

evaluation of the ministry. Listening is an opportunity 

to love our neighbors. HOPE listens to care for clients 

and members and support them in these challenging 

times. With over sixteen thousand responses gathered, 

HOPE was equipped to actively respond at program, 

regional, and network levels, and continues to 

proactively listen as lockdowns in many countries have 

lifted to continue building dreams together with clients 

and members.  

 

Case Study 2: International Care Ministries 

(ICM) 
 

The Mission 

International Care Ministries’ core program, 

Transform, is targeted at households living in extreme 

poverty and offered in the Philippines and Uganda. It 

is a fifteen-week program that delivers a values, health, 

and livelihoods curriculum, in addition to a variety of 

integrated interventions that participants can receive 

depending on need. Each program serves around thirty 

families at a time and is implemented in partnership 

with local pastors and churches. ICM also provides the 

support to maintain a network of over ten thousand 

pastors called Thrive. Through these partnerships, 

Transform has reached over 1 million family members 

in the last ten years, and the evaluations have shown 

significant improvements in household savings, 

income, health, and psychosocial indicators.  

 

The Challenge 

As COVID-19 emerged and the Philippines 

implemented strict community quarantine measures, 

Transform had to be paused due to limits on 

gatherings. Yet communities were still in need of 

spiritual, nutritional, and medical assistance.  

 

https://www.caremin.com/


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(1), Summer 2020  

Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  5 

 

Programmatic Response 
ICM has shifted from Transform to program 

interventions that deliver immediate aid and 

information during the acute phase of COVID-19, and 

indirectly support or direct organizational resources to 

newly identified needs and gaps among beneficiary 

communities. Articles and current events are frequently 

posted to widely utilized social media platforms in the 

Philippines. For example, a basic version of Facebook 

messenger can be used in the country without a data 

plan. Based on the extensive use of Facebook, ICM 

initiated the Thrive Network Chatbot to expand ICM’s 

reach within Thrive. The chatbot consists of pre-

programmed answers and information that users can 

interact with, depending on their responses to specific 

questions. This format increases user engagement, 

allows information to be focused towards individuals 

meeting a specific profile, and has exciting options for 

automated follow-up, etc.  

ICM has also developed and distributed other 

materials, including a video (on the ICM website), a 

COVID-19 Information flyer (given to pastors) for 

infection prevention and safety, as well as health 

guidelines for churches. Individuals with COVID-19 

infections in need of hospitalization and inpatient care 

can access ICM staff for medical and financial support.  

In partnership with a number of universities and 

the Canadian Government, ICM is co-leading the 

development of infection prevention and control 

guidelines for healthcare workers in hospitals and 

primary care settings (Manilla Bulletin 2020 and “ICM 

Healthcare…”), and is working to understand which 

communities are not being provided food and access to 

medical treatment so ICM can assist in alleviating these 

needs, or connect communities to resources. 

 

MERL Adaptations 

Monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning of 

ICM’s Transform and concurrent programs usually 

consists of in-person pre- and post-surveys to 

predominantly measure increases or decreases in early-

childhood education aptitude, income and savings, 

hope and self-worth, and illnesses and malnutrition. 

With COVID-19, ICM immediately embedded a 

COVID-19 knowledge, attitudes and practice module 

into scheduled surveys (Lau, et al. 2020), as well as 

shifting focus to monitoring the Thrive Network 
Chatbot through linked working dashboards. As part of 

this process, ICM ensures that registrants are sent 

devotional material and answers to COVID-19, and 

that food supplies are given out after requests have been 

evaluated by staff. ICM has a current project that solely 

utilizes phone call surveys to learn how COVID-19 

influences communities on a weekly basis. This project 

also has linked working dashboards and will again 

depict which communities require food provisions and 

will show whether future Transform surveys could 

occur over the phone.  

ICM has brought over 10 million meals to 

communities in dire need (“Delivering…” 2020) and is 

tracking food, medical and other needs in communities 

through the Thrive Network Chatbot and phone 

surveys. ICM assists with mobile phone costs for 

community leaders in order to maintain 

communication and enable continual utilization of the 

Thrive Network Chatbot and engagement in phone 

surveys. ICM is continually working with the strategy 

and implementation teams to determine the 

appropriate time for the Transform program to restart, 

or more likely, a variant of the program which decreases 

social contact and risk. ICM is also looking to develop 

new mediums, through videos and/or a chatbots, as a 

programs and strategies must be adapted post-COVID-

19. 

 

Case Study 3: Compassion International  
The Mission  

Compassion International is a Christ-centered and 

holistic child and youth development organization that 

partners with networks of over eight thousand churches 

in twenty-five countries to serve over two million 

vulnerable children through sponsorship. The mission 

of Compassion is to release children from poverty in 

Jesus’ name. 

 

The Challenge 

The key challenge for Compassion International in 

the midst of COVID-19 is how to continue holistic 

child development programs when children are not 

physically attending church-based or center-based 

programming. In addition, Compassion International 

has suspended all travel, and staff across the globe are 

working from home.  

In Kenya specifically, government restrictions to 

reduce the spread of COVID-19 put strains on a food 

security situation that was already challenging (“Why 

COVID-19…” 2020). Additionally, the government 

banned food distribution on April 12
 

after there was a 

stampede (“Kenya Bans…” 2020), and the Ministry of 

Health advised the use of digital payment methods 

instead of physical cash (“Corona Virus – Kenya…” 

2020).  These contextual factors provide a unique and 

difficult challenge to Compassion Kenya’s National 

Leadership in addition to challenges being faced at a 

global level.  

 

Programmatic Response 

In order to continue supporting church partners 

that are serving children, but without face-to-face 

interaction and while working remotely, modes of 

communication have been adapted, at least where there 

is internet capacity, to include more phone calls, 

https://www.compassion.com/


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(1), Summer 2020  

Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  6 

 

WhatsApp communications, and Zoom calls. National 

Offices and church partners are adapting center-based 

program activities to home-based programming with 

children/youth and focusing their efforts on child 

protection, household security, spiritual and emotional 

counseling, health needs, and engaging beneficiaries 

and families in their new contexts. 

Interventions by church partners in the face of 

COVID-19 have included food and hygiene kit 

distribution, unconditional cash transfers, and 

print/digital forms of content delivery or 

spiritual/emotional counseling to beneficiary families. 

The new communication system, which has included 

WhatsApp or social media, where available, or radio 

where beneficiary phone access is limited, is being used 

to supplement government health messaging and 

deliver adapted versions of Compassion’s holistic 

child/youth development curriculum.  

In response to unique contextual factors in Kenya, 

the Compassion Kenya leadership implemented 

unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) through mobile 

money, agency banking, and other platforms to support 

income stabilization and food security among the most 

vulnerable beneficiary families, as selected by local 

church partners. Compassion was able quickly to pivot 

to this intervention due to the large body of evidence 

from randomized control trials and impact studies of 

UCTs in Kenya in recent years, as well as evidence from 

other organizations, such as UNICEF, that recommend 

cash transfers when markets are functioning and food 

and other essential goods are available (Gore and Patel 

2006). 

 

MERL Adaptations  
Many normal MERL activities that depended 

upon face-to-face data collection methods were paused 

and postponed, including impact evaluations, process 

evaluations, and feedback mechanisms. Still, 

Compassion is specifically implementing MERL for 

several of the COVID-19 related interventions to 

ensure the organization can continuously improve. 

Compassion has leaned heavily on its MERL standards 

and specifically the “CARR” principles of data: 

Credibility, Actionability, Responsibility, and 

Relevance
3

 in order increasingly to learn how to discern 

God’s direction during this season of COVID-19 

response. A MERL toolkit and other resources were 

created as well to help encourage the usage of 

standardized indicators and questions for similar 

interventions, as well as establish consistent principles 

and effective practices with sufficient room for country 

contextualization, flexibility, and speed of 

implementation.  

 
3 Slightly adapted from the Goldilocks Challenge CART Principles (Karlan & Gugerty, 2018).   

The goal of the evaluation on the UCTs in Kenya 

is to learn how livelihoods and food security situations 

are changing among beneficiary families as the transfers 

began and after the transfers finish. In addition, the 

evaluation will foster learning on how the cash was used, 

how satisfied the families were, whether there were 

unintended consequences (such as putting stress on 

relationships or domestic violence), and how the 

process could be improved. The principles of 

“Actionability” and “Relevance,” and a utilization-

focused approach (“Utilization-Focused Evaluation” 

n.d.) were also applied in the logical framework and 

survey design phase by soliciting feedback from 

national office staff who would be using the results. This 

procedure highlighted the priority and interest in 

learning about the process of the cash transfers and how 

it could be improved.  

In order to apply the CARR principle of 

“Responsibility” and the ethic of “do no harm,”
 

phone-

based surveys have been employed in place of 

traditional face-to-face data collection (Mani and 

Barooah 2020). This allows ongoing data collection 

while mitigating the risk of spreading COVID-19. 

Phone surveys should only be utilized when 

information is essential for the ongoing learning and 

effectiveness of programming, especially new 

programming in Compassion such as the UCTs in 

Kenya. In addition, health messages are incorporated 

in phone surveys, especially for those who are not able 

to charge their phones in the home and may have to put 

themselves at risk of spreading COVID-19 by having to 

charge their battery more often as a result of spending 

battery life to answer the survey. Informed consent was 

obtained, and respondents were fully aware of the risks 

of charging their phone outside the home. 

Food security was a concern by Compassion 

Kenya’s National Office leadership in April 2020, 

especially among those most vulnerable to the 

economic impacts of COVID-19 and government 

restrictions (“COVID-19 Restrictions…” 2020), so the 

Household Food Insecurity Access scale (HFIAS) was 

used in both baseline and end-line surveys as part of the 

evaluation plan (Coates, Swindale, and Bilinsky 2007). 

The HFIAS is a widely used scale that helps apply the 

principle of “Credibility” and is also brief enough to be 

useful in a phone survey design. The ideal process 

would have been to conduct a baseline as part of the 

targeting procedure weeks before the first transfer, and 

to utilize recall periods of 7-days for food and market 

functionality related questions. With a 30-day recall 

period, however, the HFIAS fit within the urgent time 

https://www.forchildren.com/discover/monitoring-and-evaluation/monitoring-evaluation-research-and-learning-merl-standards
http://www.forchildren.com/crisis-resources/


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(1), Summer 2020  

Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  7 

 

frame of conducting a proxy baseline in tandem with 

the first transfers. 
4

 

To apply the principle of data “Credibility,” four 

enumerators who worked with Compassion Kenya in a 

previous study were hired and trained to conduct phone 

surveys from their homes. They were trained over 

Zoom by the National Office M&E Specialist. A 

sampling methodology that combined randomization 

with stratified systematic sampling was employed to 

select beneficiaries to interview, ensure 

representativeness among urban and rural populations, 

and to account for an estimated 80% response rate with 

a maximum of 5 calls per household. Cash transfers 

were made weekly and the sampling strategy was 

developed to accommodate weekly updates of 

beneficiary lists with contact information made by 

churches who filled out Qualtrics forms for every 

transfer they completed to selected vulnerable 

households. As most transfers were done via mobile 

phone, the full target population was accessible by 

phone in principle and bias due to non-inclusion of 

those without phones was not really a concern. The 

enumerators recorded the number of calls to reach 

each respondent as part of their data collection 

procedure in order to help build stronger estimates for 

future sampling frames. The Kenya National Office 

M&E Specialist conducts back checks to provide 

accountability for the enumerators. This involves 

calling a small random sample of beneficiary families to 

confirm that they had been contacted by the 

enumerators.   

Over a 4-week period in April-May 2020, the 

enumerators collected data from 1,369 respondents, 

which was above the sampling requirement. 99% of 

respondents selected that they would be willing to be 

contacted again for the end-line survey, which will help 

save time in conducting the sampling for the end-line 

which will take place in August 2020. The response rate 

for the baseline was 81% with an average of 2.5 calls per 

beneficiary household to complete the survey. This 

result fit the sampling frame to ensure 

representativeness. In addition, 5% of households 

contacted had not yet received the cash transfer, which 

provides useful information to the Kenya leadership 

team for follow up and improvement for subsequent 

cash transfers.  

The results were analyzed and visualized using 

Excel and Tableau by the global and Kenya MERL 

teams. The baseline and end-line will be analyzed using 

Stata in order to investigate relationships between 

various variables using correlation or regression 

 
4 See Innovations for Poverty Action’s RECOVR Hub for questionnaire examples: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HKFFWLhH6ynMhqA2NwO3LGVVYKealZDKKi6RPGnYdX8/edit#gid=

1432795253 

  

analysis. Results on the process and outcome variables 

were visualized and presented to the Kenya leadership 

teams in order to inform follow up and improving 

programming.  One alarming result from the baseline 

was that over 95% of the respondent population were 

moderately to severely food insecure at the time taking 

the survey, with over 81% of the population in the 

severe category. On top of that, there 29% of the 

respondent population was not only food insecure but 

was also facing food inaccessibility. In addition, 90% of 

urban respondent families reported missing a meal in 

the previous 4 weeks, whereas the Kenya Population 

Council’s Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice Survey 

also conducted in April 2020 in five Nairobi informal 

settlements, reported that 68% of families had reported 

missing a meal in the previous 2 weeks (Population 

Council, 2020).  This indicated that the urban 

beneficiaries targeted by the UCT were potentially 

more vulnerable than the general urban population.  

The results also showed a high degree of food insecurity 

among those with families with six or more members 

and who reported food inaccessibility.  Specific plans 

were used to follow up with the church partners and 

regions where this challenge was more prevalent. 

The results of the baseline will also provide 

immediate and actionable feedback, to apply the 

“actionability” principle, on the speed and ease to 

which the transfers were received, and whether there 

were any challenges, in order to make real-time 

improvements in implementing UCTs. The results 

from the end-line will help inform decisions regarding 

the continuity of the intervention as well as discerning 

improvements to future interventions to support 

vulnerable households with income stabilization and 

food security.  

 

Case Study 4: Food for the Hungry 

 
The Mission 

Food for the Hungry (FH) is a Christian 

humanitarian organization that began in 1971 and now 

works in more than three thousand communities, 

reaching out to two million people in twenty countries 

in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, 

responding to human suffering through relief and 

development. FH’s stated purpose is “Together we 

follow God’s call responding to human suffering and 
graduating communities from extreme poverty” 

(https://www.fh.org/about/values-vision-purpose/). FH 

implements its work with the core intervention domains 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HKFFWLhH6ynMhqA2NwO3LGVVYKealZDKKi6RPGnYdX8/edit#gid=1432795253
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HKFFWLhH6ynMhqA2NwO3LGVVYKealZDKKi6RPGnYdX8/edit#gid=1432795253
https://www.fh.org/
https://www.fh.org/about/values-vision-purpose/


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Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  8 

 

of disaster risk reduction, education, food security and 

livelihoods, gender and child protection, health, 

leadership, and change in worldview. In 2019, FH's 

three thousand staff members impacted the lives of over 

twelve million children, women, and men.  

 

The Challenge 
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in all the 

countries where FH works in March 2020, the normal 

programming of FH was interrupted due to lockdowns 

announced by governments around the world. Due to 

the elevation of the risk level because of the increasing 

number of cases, FH had to put in place the work from 

home order in alignment with many national 

governments of all countries where FH operates. FH 

also had to impose a travel embargo due either to the 

closure of country borders or to travelling restrictions in 

those countries. Financially, FH had to put in place a 

hiring freeze and freeze current pay rates in 

anticipation that there might be some challenges in the 

organizational cash flow. All discretionary spending was 

scrutinized and filtered through two questions: 

 

a. Is this essential, 

b. Is this essential NOW? 

 

FH had to address the interruption due to COVID 

19 at the organizational level and at the program level. 

The response at the organizational level was more 

strategic in nature, while at programmatic level it was to 

meet the needs of the most vulnerable who were 

impacted by the disruption due to COVID 19. This 

case study will confine itself only to the organizational 

response. 

 

Organizational Response 
During the initial stages of COVID 19, FH 

constituted a Crisis Management Team (CMT) that met 

daily to monitor the situation globally and in each 

country where FH works. The CMT was responsible 

for decisions such as closing the offices, working from 

home, and travel restrictions, as well as providing 

approvals for any community level engagement such as 

food distribution. 

After only one month, the CMT was dissolved, 

because global data were making it increasingly clear 

that a new era will be defined by a fundamental schism: 

the period before COVID-19 and the new normal that 

is emerging in the post-viral era: the “next normal.” In 

this unprecedented new reality, there is occurring a 

dramatic restructuring of the economic and social order 

in which humanitarian organizations have traditionally 

operated. At the organizational level, FH started 

seeking answers to the question being posed by leaders 

across the public, private, and social sectors: What will 

it take to navigate this crisis now that our traditional 

metrics and assumptions have been rendered 

irrelevant?  To navigate this disruption, FH determined 

five stages (also called 5Rs) as a strategic move that will 

lead FH from the crisis of today into the new reality: 

Resolve, Resilience, Return, Reimagination, and 

Reform. 

 

Resolve: to address the immediate challenges 

COVID-19 presents to staff and communities 

where we serve 

Resilience: to address near-term organizational 

cash management challenges and broader 

resiliency issues 

Return: to create a detailed plan to return the 

organization back to scale quickly 

Reimagination: to re-imagine the “next normal”—

what a discontinuous shift looks like, and with 

implications for how FH should reinvent 

Reform: to imagine how the environment in the 

industry (regulations, role of government) 

might evolve.  

 

The 5Rs are a strategic response, for which FH needed 

implementation teams. Different teams were 

repurposed under an overarching “Team of teams” 

(also called 5Ds), with clear roles, responsibilities, and 

decision authority. These 5D teams are expected to 

continue their work for the next few years to address the 

5Rs. The 5D teams are as follows: 

 

Discover: The Scenario Planning Team maintains 

multiple scenarios; it provides one 

planning scenario and facilitates future 

state exercises. 

Design: The Strategic Moves Team uses planning 

assumptions (& scenarios) to craft 

trigger-based portfolios of strategic 

moves.  

Decide: The Integrated Operations Team 

maintains operating cadence, risk maps, 

and situation reports, while also tracking 

progress and ensuring ownership.  

Deliver: The Implementation Team ensures 

extreme clarity and builds a cross-

functional team to achieve outcomes. 

Data: The Data Team supports all other D teams 

to analyze data at different levels from 

different sources and works cross 

functionally with all the D teams to 

provide insights based on data and 

pathways to better functionality.  

 

Finally, the Executive Leadership Team serves as 

a “nerve center” to ensure speed without sacrificing 

decision quality across these five dimensions (5Rs and 

5Ds). As FH considers the scale of change that the 



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coronavirus has engendered and will continue to 

engender in months and, possibly, years ahead, FH 

feels compelled to reflect not only on a major health 

crisis, but also on an imminent restructuring of the 

global economic order. How exactly this crisis evolves 

remains to be seen, but the five stages described here 

offered FH leaders and staff a clear path to begin 

navigating to the next normal, a normal that, so far, 

looks very different from anything in preceding years. 

 

MERL Adaptations 
MERL adaptations happened at two levels in FH. 

The Learning and Evaluation (L&E) Team had a 

mandate to support MERL at the Country Programs 

level while the Data Team, constituted as part of MERL 

repurposing efforts, was mandated to support other D 

teams by providing them data and evidence to enable 

them to accomplish their roles and responsibilities 

around the 5R strategy. As part of this mandate, the 

Data Team developed a Pandemic Risk Monitoring 

Dashboard. The intention for this dashboard is for each 

country in conjunction with the regional offices to 

understand the risk that coronavirus poses and to adopt 

appropriate public health recommendations across all 

categories of risk to mitigate the exposure to COVID-

19 for staff and beneficiaries. If the risk is HIGH, 

stricter precautions are advised than if risk is LOW. 

Two indicators of change (active cases in the last 

fourteen days and deviations from the peak) were 

monitored daily and risk status was updated weekly. To 

track the peak, the data team built the epidemiological 

data model to predict the number of cases based on the 

SEIR model (susceptible, exposed, infected, and 

recovered). The spread of infection is monitored 

through test positivity rate, while the pandemic 

reproductive rate is calculated based on mitigation 

measures, the testing capacity for each country, and the 

severity of the pandemic (the days it takes to double the 

number of deaths). This risk monitoring enables the 

country offices to take decisions on return to work or to 

resume field-level activities. The data team also 

monitors the key economic indicators at the global and 

country level to advise the leadership on how the 

economic scenario is unfolding and what impact the 

organization can anticipate.  

At the program level, all face to face data collection 

was put on hold as entire field operations were 

disrupted. The Learning and Evaluation Team, in 

partnership with the Relief and Humanitarian 

Assistance Team (RHA), which was steering the global 

pivoting for COVID 19, developed the Pandemic 

Impact Remote Survey (PIRMS). The Pandemic 

Impact Remote Monitoring Survey (PIRMS) is an open 

source, rapid, replicable assessment tool used to 

monitor the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on 

affected communities. This data collection tool is not a 

formative research (diagnostic) tool, nor should it be 

confused with Knowledge, Practice and Coverage 

(KPC) or Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) 

surveys, which are generally used for program 

monitoring. Rather, the PIRMS consists of fourteen 

questions that investigate respondents’ knowledge of 

the virus and the changes they have noticed in their 

communities since the onset of the pandemic (e.g. 

access to services, changes in movement, availability of 

resources). The survey takes about ten to fifteen 

minutes to complete and is repeated in the same 

geographic area every fifteen days until conditions 

stabilize. It is not necessary to engage the same 

respondents each time the survey is administered. Also, 

the interviewer may select any remote tool (e.g. mobile 

phone, WhatsApp) to administer the survey, but 

responses are collected in remote data collection tools 

such as Open Data Kit (ODK). 

Stakeholders, such as community leaders, local 

and regional government offices, and implementing 

partners should be considered for data dissemination. 

Data can be presented in a manner that is appropriate 

for each stakeholder. Based on the results, partners, 

alongside national stakeholders can use data to: 

● Initiate more detailed needs assessments in specific 

sectors and locations to design interventions and 

develop funding proposals. 

● Help fill information gaps expressed by donors 

and humanitarian agencies on community-level 

conditions and develop strong cases for targeted 

funding responses. 

● Engage partners to generate and share more data 

to gain a better understanding at broader levels 

(national, regional, and perhaps even global levels). 

 

The results of PIRMS can be accessed by visiting 

the PIRMS google site. Analyses are presented as 

snapshots for any time interval, as well as trend and 

cross analysis. The PIRMS contains an interactive 

dashboard that helps country programs to gain insights 

from their data and adapt programs to address 

emerging needs due to COVID-19. One key result 

from PIRMS thus far is that there has been a 

widespread and significant decline of income due to 

COVID-19. Respondents who indicated that they have 

witnessed or experienced a decline in income have 

higher prevalence of anxiety and instances of abuse. 

The survey also found that an increase in anxiety and 

abuse resulted in fewer children participating in home 

learning. Findings and insights through this PIRMS will 

enable Country Program to pivot in response to arising 

needs as they plan for next year.  

One more tool FH designed and tested is a Rapid 

Remote Assessment (RRA) tool, a formative research 

tool to inform program pivots. Data is collected through 

telephone interviews. A resource guide was developed 

https://sites.google.com/fh.org/pandemic-impact-survey/
https://sites.google.com/fh.org/pandemic-impact-survey/
https://sites.google.com/fh.org/pandemic-impact-survey/
https://sites.google.com/fh.org/pandemic-impact-survey/
https://sites.google.com/fh.org/pandemic-impact-survey/


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(1), Summer 2020  

Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  10 

 

that explains the purpose, objectives, methodology, and 

scope of the tool. This resource will be used in virtual 

training for personnel who will collaborate in 

evaluations.  

In conclusion, through the repurposing of 

Monitoring and Evaluation in FH, the L&E and Data 

teams have been able to support FH’s response to 

COVID-19 by providing data and enabling evidence-

based pivoting. This repurposing also brought new 

capabilities to the organization that will serve the 

mission in the long-term, such as predictive and 

prescriptive analysis that enable program pivoting. 

While the L&E team supports Country Offices through 

remote data collection and informing the need for 

pivoting, the Data team takes a more strategic approach 

by relying on “big data” and machine learning. Many 

global websites have large and complex data sets on 

COVID 19. These and Economic Indicator data 

permit the Data team to develop analytical models for 

decision making. These global data sets are so 

voluminous that traditional data processing software 

cannot manage them. Other engines have been created 

for these massive volumes of data that are now available 

to address business problems in new ways. This is a new 

venture for FH and every day requires learning. The 

need to put all program evaluations on hold due to 

COVID-19 provided the space necessary to develop 

these capabilities for advanced analysis and 

visualization that would otherwise not have been 

possible. These examples of repurposed MERL in FH 

will enable meeting short-term and long-term 

challenges in an uncertain future.  

 

Conclusions 
The Accord member organizations featured in this 

paper offer a glimpse into the different postures, 

principles, and practices that have informed MERL 

approaches in the midst of the global COVID-19 

pandemic. Each has had to make quick decisions to 

respond to different contexts and challenges posed by 

the pandemic, and each offer lessons learned to 

consider for MERL into the future. In addition, the 

cases provide inspiration on how organizations can 

emerge from the pandemic with stronger programs and 

approaches to MERL as a result of the innovation and 

flexibility necessary for implementing development 

programs in a volatile setting.  

While these four cases are a small subset of a much 

larger network and industry, the cases reviewed together 

offer some unique insights for organizations seeking to 

utilize MERL in order to serve people even more 

effectively in years ahead.  

 

 

 

1. MERL is more important now than ever – but it 

must deliver  

As many organizations adapt their programs and 

pilot new initiatives in response to the global pandemic, 

and other emerging challenges, MERL offers the ability 

to listen to communities, stay relevant, prioritize 

learning, continue improving, and build trust and 

relationship. At the same time, the stakes are high for 

MERL to deliver useful data and provide value. For 

some organizations, there may be a temptation to move 

too quickly in response to crisis and fail to prioritize 

appropriate MERL design and investment. Michael 

Quinn Patton, former president of the American 

Evaluation Association and evaluation expert, 

challenges evaluation professionals to “prepare to make 

the case for evaluation’s value…prepare by working now 

to make evaluation all the more useful and real-time 

data essential so that the evaluation value proposition 

reframes evaluation as an essential activity not as a 

mundane bureaucratic or luxurious function when 

times are good” (Patton 2020). 

 

2. MERL must keep adapting  

In a global pandemic, business as usual for MERL 

was completely disrupted. In all four organizations, 

regular planned MERL activities were postponed. In a 

matter of a few days, not only were the approaches no 

longer relevant or even safe for communities, but the 

very purpose of the activities and many of the questions 

being asked were no longer appropriate. The four cases 

provide examples of organizations adapting tools to 

provide more real-time feedback to decision-makers, 

adapting methods of data collection to remain as 

rigorous as possible while keeping staff and 

communities safe, adapting and rethinking the purpose 

of evaluations and what is really essential to best fulfill 

the mission of the organization, and adapting the 

function of MERL to include leveraging big data and 

machine learning techniques.  

 

3. MERL must apply good principles in a crisis  

The challenge for Christ-centered organizations 

during COVID-19 is to discern God’s leading and 

make consequential decisions in a rapidly changing 

external environment. These decisions should be 

informed by monitoring and listening to what is 

happening both externally and internally with 

beneficiaries, staff, and many other stakeholders. Yet, 

the challenge is compounded because most of the 

standard MERL approaches organizations have used in 

the past no longer apply. Nevertheless, good MERL 

principles must continue to underpin the new and 

adapted approaches. These principles must be applied 

consistently and proactively, even if the actual 

approaches may differ. As a priority, Christ-centered 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(1), Summer 2020  

Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  11 

 

organizations should be clear on what their principles 

are, especially in the middle of a crisis. 

Some examples of key principles highlighted in 

these case studies are the following:  

• HOPE International applies an important 

principle to listen well to clients through MERL 

as a form of ministry and service to people who 

bear God’s image, especially in a crisis.  

• ICM applies the principle to leverage what 

communication mechanism is already available 

for the majority of its network to make services 

and MERL activities more relevant, effective, 

and timely.  

• Compassion International’s CARR principles 

seek to balance what would lead to “Credible” 

data with what is “Responsible” in order to 

gather data that supports decision-making and 

serves children and families loved by God.  

• Food for the Hungry applies the principle to 

utilize already available “big data” to provide the 

best insights for decision-making, because those 

who are vulnerable deserve the best insights 

available as a form of service.  

For further information on good principles, 

Check, Green, and Kumar (2020) provide a framework 

of principles to consider for Christ-centered 

organizations conducting MERL that interacts with the 

American Evaluation Association Guiding Principles. 

One example of how organizations could apply the 

same principles differently would be a decision on 

whether to hire enumerators or not. One organization 

could decide to hire and manage enumerators remotely 

to collect data through phone surveys in order to be 

more rigorous as an approach, while another 

organization could decide to train and rely on staff to 

collect data in order to save money, provide work to 

staff and/or utilize the opportunity to build a culture of 

learning. Given the situation and constraints, each 

approach may be appropriate in the given scenario and 

if they are also applying good principles.  

It will be a challenging journey for Christ-centered 

organizations to increasingly deliver value through 

MERL, adapt MERL to provide even more useful data, 

and utilize good principles to guide MERL approaches 

in ever shifting and volatile environments, like the one 

COVID-19 presents. It is a journey worth taking, 

because it will inform responses to COVID-19 and also 

improve the ability for organizations to discern God’s 

direction for providing quality services, seeking justice, 

and empowering communities to face an unknown 

future.  

 

 

 

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Green, Mallonee, and Check, MERL in the Time of COVID-19: Four Case Studies  12 

 

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Additional Resources 

Accord Network COVID-19 Resources 

Accord Research Alliance COVID-19 MERL 

Resources 
 

 

 

Authors/Editors 
 

Rodney Green is a Monitoring, Evaluation and 

Listening Specialist with Compassion International 

with ten years of experience in International 

Development.  He holds a MSc in Development 

Management and co-chairs the Accord Research 

Alliance steering committee. 

 

Author email: RGreen@us.ci.org  

 

Nathan Mallonee is the Senior Director of Program 

Development at Living Water International. He holds a 

master’s degree in international policy and development 

from Georgetown University and co-chairs the Accord 

Research Alliance steering committee. 

 

Author email: nmallonee@mac.com  

 

Kristen Check is a Senior Program Effectiveness 

Research Specialist with Compassion International 

and owner of Edessa Research, LLC. She holds an 

MA in Anthropology, has over ten years of experience 

in International Development, and co-chairs the 

Accord Research Alliance steering committee. 
 

Author email: Kcheck@us.ci.org  

 

 

Contributors for Case Studies 

 
Rebecca Mentzer serves at HOPE International as 

Senior Listening, Monitoring, and Evaluation Advisor. 

She is a member of the ARA steering committee.  

 

Lincoln Lau, based in Manila, is an infectious disease 

epidemiologist, Director of Research at International 

Care Ministries, and Assistant Professor of Public 

Health at University of Toronto. 

 

Kendall Wilson is an ICM Research Associate with a 

background in Epidemiology, a passion for M&E and 

healthcare, and an eagerness to launch her career in 

medical research. 

 

Allan Kakinda is a Global Monitoring and Evaluation 

Specialist at Compassion International, based in Uganda. 

 

Peter Ndungu is a National Monitoring and 

Evaluation Specialist for Compassion International in 

Kenya.   

 

Dr. Subodh Kumar is Global Director of Monitoring 

and Evaluation with Food for the Hungry and has 

been working in M&E for the last 25 years. He is a 

member of the ARA steering committee.  

https://mb.com.ph/2020/07/21/protecting-filipino-healthcare-workers-from-covid-19/
https://mb.com.ph/2020/07/21/protecting-filipino-healthcare-workers-from-covid-19/
https://www.3ieimpact.org/blogs/phone-surveys-developing-countries-need-abundance-caution
https://www.3ieimpact.org/blogs/phone-surveys-developing-countries-need-abundance-caution
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2656088561122124
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2656088561122124
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https://bluemarbleeval.org/latest/evaluation-implications-coronavirus-global-health-pandemic-emergency
https://bluemarbleeval.org/latest/evaluation-implications-coronavirus-global-health-pandemic-emergency
https://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/2020PGY_CovidKenyaKAPStudyResultsBriefRound2.pdf
https://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/2020PGY_CovidKenyaKAPStudyResultsBriefRound2.pdf
https://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/2020PGY_CovidKenyaKAPStudyResultsBriefRound2.pdf
https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/plan/approach/utilization_focused_evaluation
https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/plan/approach/utilization_focused_evaluation
https://theconversation.com/why-covid-19-is-another-blow-for-kenyas-food-security-135567
https://theconversation.com/why-covid-19-is-another-blow-for-kenyas-food-security-135567
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TC_MFS_BigDataBigImpact_Briefing_2012.pdf
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TC_MFS_BigDataBigImpact_Briefing_2012.pdf
https://accordnetwork.org/resources/covid-19-resources/
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T6RBQ-1yy-34XglanpjXQoZLGVZ3UJeXw276OD7TczI/edit?ts=5ea9cd00#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T6RBQ-1yy-34XglanpjXQoZLGVZ3UJeXw276OD7TczI/edit?ts=5ea9cd00#gid=0
mailto:RGreen@us.ci.org
mailto:nmallonee@mac.com
mailto:Kcheck@us.ci.org

