On Purpose or With Purpose
Samuel Beckett's play Breath begins with a baby's cry on a dark stage. Thirty-five seconds later the play ends in the dark with another cry, an adult's. In between, the audience hears one long inhale and exhale; the stage is lit, and the audience sees only a pile of garbage.
Clearly, Beckett was trying to stimulate thinking and conversation about the value of life. Why am I here? What's my purpose?
Stafford Beer, a British theorist, consultant, and professor once said: "The purpose of a system is what it does." He added, "There's no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do." He went on to say that what we see the system do is often at odds with the organization's stated purpose.
If our purpose is to be healthy and we continue to smoke, eat poorly, and exercise less, then so much for that New Year's Resolution. Likewise, if we wish for society to thrive, if that's our purpose, we would do well to study the results of our efforts. If data suggests, for example, that our goal to reduce poverty has been unsuccessful, it would be wise to find out why, and then modify our purpose or amend the strategy.
Data is crucial to determining whether you're meeting your purpose or not. Curandi helps social service agencies in the Mid-Willamette Valley determine whether they are meeting their purpose or not, and if not, why not. That is accomplished by doing a few things: being clear about the purpose, developing strategies to get there, designing research, and analyzing data to quantify results. Sometimes, helping to eliminate "silos" is important by structuring a distributed network among those with shared goals. A distributed network can dramatically improve success rates and client outcomes, as we talked about in this blog post.
Case in Point
One of the "collaborative networks" we work with is called CBEL (Community Business and Education Leaders). Their stated purpose is: "that every child grows up in a safe, stable, nurturing home, enjoys good health, succeeds in school, and goes on in life to become financially self-sufficient.”
Peeling that apart, there are specific areas of Salem and Keizer that are getting the most attention: neighborhoods that have been chronically challenged with lower average incomes, lower academic achievement, lower rates of home ownership, and higher rates of stress.
CBEL's strategy is to financially support and empower neighborhood family councils, whose purposes vary somewhat but are within CBEL's larger scope. For example, data about increased use of a neighborhood park might point to increased trust and safety, while data showing an improvement in the number of children who graduate from kindergarten at grade level could be seen as an early indicator of academic success.
CBEL is one node in the network, and every neighborhood family council represents a separate node. Likewise, CBEL supports other nonprofit organizations whose purpose aligns with theirs, and whose specific services address the needs of those neighborhoods. The Marion Polk Early Learning Hub trains parents to teach their infants reading skills, for example. Fostering Hope Initiative offers support to neighborhoods with specific, emergency financial expenses, and employs community health specialists to help neighborhood families navigate the healthcare system. Tracking data from these activities will help CBEL see whether the needle has budged for school success and community health.
When everybody in the network uses the same software, data and analysis are shared and everyone understands the steps to desired outcomes. Adapting to changes in one neighborhood can inform the others. Results help to build confidence in what is happening collectively and suggest ways to modify activity if it is not. The close-knit nature of the network creates better working relationships between organizations and fewer missteps for clients. Data also supports new requests for additional funding to support the expansion of the model.
Finally, data lets us know whether we're moving towards or away from our stated purpose. It provides information that allows adaptations to the service offerings, to improve the connectivity between parties, or to improve how each partner communicates with one another. It helps to create a felt sense of community because the distance between any network member is never more than one node. As data accumulates from each neighborhood, it can also stimulate an improvement in the self-esteem of the entire city – a rising tide affecting all boats.