Isn’t it great working in the not-for-profit universe? Our clients tell us we are wonderful. Our professional organizations spend much effort in annual ceremonies of self-congratulation. Our mothers tell their friends how proud they are. The work itself provides ample personal rewards for the good that we do. All well and good, as it should be. But there are dangers out there! With these factors propping us up, we risk becoming complacent about our agency’s position in the hierarchy of local organizations.
It’s not enough to know that we are good. We have to ask ourselves if those who have a stake in our organization’s future agree and act on our behalf. Developing a plan for sustainability comes down to a few basic questions that must be answered:
Instead of asking “are we good?” ask “what is our impact?”
Instead of asking “how can we sustain our program?” ask, “how can we sustain our impact”?
Who really has a stake in these impacts and how can they help?
Assessing impact is, essentially, program evaluation. You are trying to assemble evidence regarding the change that has occurred as a result of your actions and arranging for audiences who will be convinced by the argument. You are trying to answer the “in order to” question: “We do what we do in order to…” and then trying to prove the connection works.
Some of your stakeholders may have high standards regarding the evidence they need to see that you are producing the outcomes you claim. Other audiences may be persuaded by softer criteria, individual stories of people whom you have helped, for example. When tying your sustainability plan to the interests of your stakeholders, peg your investment in evaluation to the stakeholders’ expectations. In reality, you may have several different groups of stakeholders (or even individual stakeholders) whose support you need. Hence, your evaluation products might vary and target different audiences.
The line between evaluation and marketing can become rather thin, but never eschew integrity or honesty in communicating what you do. Make valid claims. Qualify them as needed when they don’t demonstrate the standards of “evaluation science.” If you are using stories, great, but don’t claim that’s what happens every time. Use stories that 1) illustrate the kinds of situations you address, 2) how to think about them and 3) how your understanding of those situations drives the work. What you are constructing is a picture of your organization for people who need to understand what you are trying to do.
One last thought… think about impact in two ways:
1) What is your positive impact?
2) What would happen if you did nothing or your agency went away? (the Tea Party threat)
and through two lenses…
1) What is your impact on the lives of individuals?
2) What is the impact on the neighborhood or community?
If you can construct an argument that, not only are you helping individuals, but that the surrounding community benefits, so much the better. Helping elders age in place with home modifications and repairs can help stabilize home values in the neighborhood. See the thinking here?
I’ll touch on the issue of sustainability in future blogs as well.
Posted by Aging Indiana 
It’s not a vision. It’s a memory.
June 18, 2010I had the privilege this week of observing a planning forum for Fifth Ward seniors, held at the JW Peavey Senior Center in central Houston. Programming for the predominantly African-American neighborhood is provided by the venerable Neighborhood Centers, Inc., an outstanding non-profit serving Houston for over 100 years.
Using the facilitation method known as Appreciative Inquiry, over 100 elders spent three hours reflecting on the strengths, not the weaknesses of the neighborhood. From small table workgroups they produced creative and powerful images of the kind of neighborhood that would enable individuals to remain in place as they age, typically focusing on an infrastructure that would enable people to move about with safety and security, accessing vital services and relationships with friends and family.
Though produced as a vision for the future, my friend Jane Bavineau wisely observed that the group was merely wanting to get back to the way it was, before drugs, prostitution, crime and disinvestment changed their stable, strong neighborhood.
So it’s not a vision. It’s a memory.
While it’s common, and usually a good thing, we “facilitators” of the world often engage groups in envisioning exercises to help create a template for actions that can lead to a better future. Perhaps we need to spend more time with memory. Unlike a dream, memory is based in a reality, albeit sometimes rose-colored by nostalgia. Being reality-based, moreover, the examination of memory can lead us to consider the real forces, political and economic, that led to negative (and positive) change… that led us away from home, so to speak. Asking how we arrived at this point is a worthwhile premise for discussing how we move forward. For how can we move forward without targeting the fundamental forces and power structures that keep us where we are?
This group at JW Peavey is indeed politically aware. They vote. They call their elected officials, en masse. They see that their efforts to create a good place to grow old means that everyone, all ages, will benefit.
Children have dreams. Elders have memories. How interesting that they produce a common image. How powerful it would be to mobilize the energy of children’s dreams and the wisdom of elders’ memory to transform our communities “back to the future”.
Don’t leave yet… speaking of community planning, I want to draw your attention to several new tools recently published to our www.agingindiana.org website. With support from the Daniels Fund of Denver, Colorado, we engaged several national experts to produce tools organized around the Indiana state planning process we are coming to call Communities for a Lifetime. As access to mental health services emerged as a key issue in the Indiana AdvantAge Initiative survey, we have produced a community guidebook to enable citizens groups to learn the basics and mobilize around evidence-based solutions to improve the mental health of elders in their communities. Likewise, as many communities in Indiana are addressing home modification needs, we have produced “How to Develop a Home Modification Coalition.” In addition, as communities begin to formulate social marketing campaigns to raise awareness about key issues, they can now take advantage of a Communications Guidebook, organized specifically around the AdvantAge Initiative’s 33 indicators of an elder-friendly community.
You might also find interesting, in the research reports, a new table illustrating similarities and differences in our survey results across urban to rural areas. And to top it off, this growing and rich resource of data for Indiana now includes GIS-producted visual images of variation across Indiana planning and service areas around some very interesting indicators – obesity, diabetes, awareness of services, etc. Check it out!
While you’re at it, visit our “founding” home page at the Center on Aging and Community, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community, Indiana University, to join the Facebook group, follow tweets, and link to other Center projects and websites. See http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/index.php?pageId=31.
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