Have you met Jessica Gibbons-Benton?
This month, we are excited to introduce Elevate consultant and co-founder, Jessica Gibbons-Benton! She is known by those close to her as easy going and flexible, and has a generally sunny disposition. She loves exploring and trying new things, but also deeply values her daily routines and works to create a sense of steadiness in her life. This is evident in her work, as Jessica weighs all options carefully and needs to hear literally everyone’s perspective before moving forward. In meetings, we can count on her to document every idea and comment generated, and keep the team on track with our agendas. While Jessica is typically calm and collected, she also loves bringing silliness and mirth into everything she does - she often snorts when she laughs, and if she gets really excited, you might even see a signature action kick.
Jessica and her husband, Zach.
Regarding her work at Elevate, Jessica enjoys the designing and planning processes that allow her to whiteboard different ideas and think critically about how to tackle a project. She also likes conducting data analysis, considering it a comforting and welcome break from the ambiguity that can seem pervasive during the design phase. The familiarity that comes with analyzing data and her ability to focus on introspection and reflection energizes her deeply. Jessica considers one of the more challenging aspects of evaluation consulting to be clarifying roles and expectations. Balancing Elevate’s commitment to each project’s success on one hand with the team’s capacity on the other can be difficult, since most projects evolve over time and rarely go exactly to plan.
Jessica and Zach excited to explore Edinburgh.
One piece of advice Jessica would offer to clients concerning evaluation and data is to make the most of what you’re required to do. Oftentimes it may seem like organizations are conducting evaluations solely as a funder requirement and the data may not seem useful internally. Jessica suggests that you pinpoint what you really want to learn, and seek to align the funders’ requirements with information that could yield learning and changed behavior on the part of the organization. If this alignment is not possible, then cut your losses and manage your investments so you’re not overly dedicating resources to something you cannot benefit from.
A little evidence that Jessica is indeed a silly human.
Very little can make Jessica smile as consistently as her dog, Roland. Although he barks a whole heck of a lot, she cannot get over how precious and adorable he is. Her favorite thing about him is his “puppy sigh,”-- his way of communicating frustration when she doesn’t give him what he wants. To the surprise of many of her friends, Jessica loves early Sylvester Stallone movies and most classic action movies from the 80s. She also loves murder mysteries, astronomy, and has been painting with watercolor since the start of the pandemic. Jessica’s favorite Nashville restaurant is Two Ten Jack, where she typically orders a pork ramen meal but always gets takoyaki, or octopus hushpuppies.
Roland’s 2nd Birthday
Roland and his cousin, Turkey.
When we asked Amy Merritt Campbell what inspires her the most about Jessica, Amy shared her calm and practical energy as a superpower, as well as her “magical ability” to positively reframe ideas in a way that makes them much more solvable. This is a huge asset to the team.
Regarding her view of the future of Elevate, Jessica is simply content with and excited to continue doing this great work. She sees Elevate becoming thought leaders in the nonprofit space concerning evaluation and building a platform to promote learning, scaling, and making data practical.
A murder mystery train: shockingly, someone had just been “murdered.”
To connect more with Jessica Gibbons-Benton, email her at jessica@consultelevate.com.
Blog written by Damisi Fawole