Why external evaluation adds a useful outside view
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An evaluator from outside a campaign brings a perspective free from the assumptions and attachments that naturally build up among people who have been closely involved in the work day to day, which can surface issues an internal team might genuinely struggle to see clearly, simply by virtue of being so closely involved in it.
External evaluation also carries more credibility with funders and sceptical audiences, since an outside assessment is less easily dismissed as a campaign simply grading its own work favourably, particularly when the underlying results turn out to be genuinely mixed rather than uniformly positive across every single measure that was tracked.
The value of external evaluation depends heavily on genuine independence and access to honest information, since an evaluator working from a limited or carefully curated picture will produce conclusions no more reliable than an internal review would have offered on its own anyway, defeating the entire purpose.