As I was working on research into Indigenous community development, I wanted to get an overview of how things are going - are projects improving well-being? What is working and what isn't? I found I couldn't get a clear multi-dimensional picture. So I had to wonder, about evaluation criteria and what the alternatives were. How can we, as academics and researchers and allies, make sense of the available information in such a way that our work is meaningful to the Indigenous communities we work with?