---
title: Field Verification
group: Research
order: 7
summary: A protocol workspace for defining field checks, evidence limits, safeguards, responses and corrective actions, alongside the charter for an independent field-verification service.
status: live
statusNote: Local protocol-writing software is live. No field visit, interview, audit or independent verification has occurred through it. Actual fieldwork still needs funded local partners, ethics review, consent, safeguards and governance.
conditions: [missing-feedback-loop, measurement-gap, missing-voice]
firstMilestone: A published verification protocol, reviewed by field researchers and community organizations, and one pilot check run with a local research partner.
help:
  - Open an issue labeled program describing what a fair check of one kind of program, such as water points or school meals, should look at.
  - If you lead a research group or community organization that could partner on a pilot, open an issue labeled program.
  - Share a monitoring or feedback method that worked for your organization.
related: [/open-problems/closing-the-feedback-loop/, /open-problems/the-agency-premium/, /tools/due-diligence-checklist/, /programs/evidence-reviews/]
sources:
  - title: Feedback Labs
    publisher: Feedback Labs
    url: https://feedbacklabs.org/
---

## Prepare a verification protocol

[Open the field-verification workspace](#partner-workspace-field-verification) to define a claim, site scope and sampling limits, then draft evidence checks, safeguards, findings notes, a response process and corrective actions. A fictional example makes the unresolved permissions explicit. Save and export the protocol for qualified local review.

The workspace conducts no visit, interview or audit and contacts nobody. User-entered findings remain unverified notes. Keep participant details, precise site locations and confidential material out. A completed checklist supplies no approval or consent for fieldwork; the reviewed protocol and local pilot in the charter remain institutional milestones.

## What it is

Most of what donors know about a program comes from the organization that runs it. Field Verification would add an independent check. Local researchers would visit a sample of sites and ask two questions: did the work happen as reported, and what do the people it was meant to serve say changed?

## How it works

Each check would follow a published protocol written for that kind of program. For a water project, that might mean visiting a random sample of water points to see whether they work. For a school program, it might mean comparing attendance records with what teachers and families report. People would be interviewed with their consent, in their own language and by researchers from their region. Only summary findings would be published, and nobody’s personal details would appear in a report.

Organizations would see the findings before publication, and their response would be printed alongside. Checks would be done with an organization, not to it, and any organization could ask for one.

## Why it matters for the system

Field Verification would work on three conditions at once. It would close part of the [Missing Feedback Loop](/diagnosis/missing-feedback-loop/) by carrying what happened on the ground back to the people who paid for it. It would narrow the [Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/) with a shared service that small organizations couldn’t afford to build alone. And it would treat the [Missing Voice](/diagnosis/missing-voice/) by making the people served a primary source rather than an afterthought.

Others have built part of this. Feedback Labs, for example, helps nonprofits and funders listen to the people they serve and act on what they hear. Field Verification would add an independent, published check that any donor can read.

## Risks and limits

Visits take people’s time, and an outside researcher can change what people are willing to say. Checks can also become a burden that falls hardest on small organizations. The protocol would limit visit length, pay local researchers fairly and go through ethics review before any pilot. Until partners, funding and a proper legal and governance setup are in place, the program accepts no money.

## What success looks like

Within five years, independent checks are a normal part of how large programs report and their findings are public. At least some funding decisions have changed because of them.