I’m Sanjukta Moorthy
I specialise in participatory, decolonial, intersectional, and inclusive approaches to social impact.
Through creativity and innovation, my work helps shift power in our sector.
Planning | Monitoring | Evaluation | Learning
Justice | Equity | Diversity | Inclusion
Over the past 20 years, I have supported women’s organisations, participatory funders, human rights groups, UN agencies, and NGOs to become more community-led and localised. I’m a specialist in strategy, M&E, and program design. I also help build stronger organisations whose practices match their values.
I bring my cross-cutting expertise from decades in activism, journalism, and the ethical fashion industry. My work reflects on the role of power and history. It is grounded in lived realities and experiences, and centres communities’ expertise.
The SMC Group also creates bespoke resources and tools, shared freely to break the elitist paywall they normally hide behind. You’ll find it all in my blog, ‘Behind M&E Lines’.
My name is pronounced ‘Sun-yook-ta’. For English speakers, it’s ‘Sun’ like the sun, and ‘yook’ rhymes with ‘book’. I am a queer woman from South India, and my pronouns are she/her/ella.
I designed the RADIQUAL Framework and Methodology in 2018, and use it as my values guide to shift power. Read more about it here.
My Approaches
Decolonising PMEL involves a fundamental reorientation and centres the marginalised communities that colonisation oppressed. It seeks to undo historical injustice while proposing a new pathway for our sector. This involves power holders – including myself in certain situations – acknowledging their privilege and making space for others.
Restorative justice is a pivotal element in my work, rooted in a strong foundation of social and gender politics.
I critically examine power dynamics, privilege, and their implications for driving social change. My approach is utilisation-focused (no unread PDFs gathering dust here). I design circular feedback loops so each project contributes to regular improvements to the way we do PMEL and JEDI+. This draws deeply from my decades in activism, journalism, and ethical fashion.
This work is deeply personal and supports marginalised voices, like mine, and against systems of oppression, including those that some of my identities perpetuate. I am a queer South Indian woman, and I also have language and caste privilege.
Knowledge is power and does not belong to any one group. I am dedicated to freely sharing my work, free webinars, and designing high quality resources that advocate for improved practices.
Everything I create is designed in plain language to break down the barriers of elitist jargon, so it’s inclusive – and engaging to read.
I also engage with clients, their communities, and partners to continually assess our methods, promote shared learning, and advance participatory, decolonised, intersectional, and inclusive methodologies. We know what’s broken, what’s not working, and what needs to change.
My work is all about ‘getting on with it’.
I advocate for action research and action learning. My methodologies are user-centred and localised, placing a strong emphasis on lived experiences and sociopolitical context. Cultural and social norms are central to my frameworks.
Change is not linear, and neither are my approaches.
Whether it’s designing feminist programmes, evaluating mid-term strategies, or presenting impact study findings, everything is framed through a lens of queer, feminist, and anti-racist principles.
I also use a caring approach in all my work. I’m here to walk with you on the journey, never judge, preach, or push you beyond what you can reasonably do.
My work is deeply relational. I always start with ‘meeting people where they are’ – and a joint visioning of where you and your communities want to be. I work with you every step of the way, as a supporter, critical friend, advocate, and ally.
Having spent so many years outside our sector, I can see it for what it is – and the self delusion we’ve taken on as part of our persona. There’s a deep superiority complex we all have, in feeling like our work is more meaningful than others, and that therefore makes us better than other people. We take that superiority into our work, falsely believing we hold all the answers. We don’t. (Spoiler alert, no one does.)
I don’t expect any client or partner to understand the value of feminist or decolonial approaches. I know that for many, M&E is an additional department that’s only properly resourced once you’ve got enough program staff.
And I know that the road to getting to a decolonial, participatory, intersectional, and inclusive approach, with all the relevant systems, tools, organisational culture, and practices takes time.
My Expertise
Participatory and Inclusive Approaches
I use participatory and inclusive approaches in my research and PMEL work. The people I work with, the groups I partner with, and the communities I engage are all central to my research. I involve multiple perspectives, cultural and social norms, and views from different groups of people in my work.
When designing a programme evaluation, this could mean first speaking with the grassroots organisations, community leaders, and, where possible, the people themselves instead of the structure being dictated by power holders and then shared for feedback.
Their views are the first step in shaping my methodologies so that my work is relevant to the right people and designed with and for them at all stages.
Decolonial
As an Indian woman, I always bring a decolonial/decolonised perspective to my work.
This means that I actively question the ‘Western’ biases of research and the power imbalances in the day-to-day activities of research – for example, people are not subjects to be studied but powerful actors for change [a powerful but basic idea].
Decolonisation seeks to recover the lost identities that colonial powers took away from us by truly empowering communities and our own voices, promoting self-determination and social justice. On a practical level, I prioritise cultural identity and share human stories of communities, bringing the social aspect of social science back to our work.
[A note on language: I see ‘decolonial’ as a journey towards being ‘decolonised’. The latter is also a set of community-led and Indigenous practices that challenge colonialism and neocolonialism].
Intersectional Feminism
I am also a proud intersectional feminist. We all have multiple identities that affect how we see the world, our experiences, and how we interact with other groups.
Intersectionality is not just about our identities and how they shape us, but how those relate to systems of power and structural inequities. Intersectionality shows us how we’re part of multiple communities and are in solidarity with each other.
I examine the different layers that make up my clients’ identities, communities, partners, and the societies they are part of, examining the power structures and social, political, and cultural norms. Most importantly, I use the framework of intersectionality to understand and work to deconstruct the systems that keep one group of people more privileged and powerful than another for no reason.
Philanthropy & Grantmaking
I worked at Open Society Foundations as a grantmaker for many years. I specialised in PMEL as a second job to help us better understand how we could help our grantees and partners achieve their goals.
I use my skills in grantmaking and fundraising to help organisations find the right supporters, apply for funding, and manage their donor relationships. I do this both for funding organisations and those seeking support.
Investigative Journalist
I have many years of journalism experience and use storytelling and investigative skills to facilitate workshops, training sessions, and skill-building activities. I use my experience with qualitative research, quantitative data analysis, facilitating focus groups and conducting interviews in all my work. These experiences helped cultivate my curiosity and keep an open mind.
Multi-Disciplinary
I bring PMEL ideas from all kinds of industries – from the private sector, the arts, and journalism, to all of my projects to give them a cross-cutting lens. I firmly believe the greatest learning comes when we expand our horizons and look for knowledge outside our familiar circles.
I bring community organising from activism to help my clients plan more meaningful campaigns.
Our industry can not only learn from others – such as using design thinking to create exciting projects; we also have so much to share, especially by using data to help make social change.
Multicultural
I had the privilege of an international upbringing, across Asia and Europe. This inspires my work and worldviews. I bring a localised, culture-centric approach to PMEL and JEDI+, rooted in values and norms.
I have been the most privileged person in the room, and the most marginalised – and everything in between. That type of lived experience helps me remain grounded in reality, questioning and confronting power, and actively seeking inclusive ways to do our work.
That includes language, cultural norms, and values. In our sector especially, also challenging the US- and Anglo-Saxon-centrism of our ‘default’.
Get in Touch
Have a question, or ready to discuss your needs?
Book a no-strings-attached consultation with me here:
Prefer email instead? I get it!
Write to me and I’ll reply within three days:
