Steve, what you are talking about is important. From my experience, most social change organizations are simply not in a position to ground their evaluation efforts in broad-based data like what you are describing. Several years back, I ran a mission-driven consulting group that helped sustainability nonprofits with technology and engagement. We worked hard to get them to focus on measuring the effectiveness of their engagement efforts, but the one question that would come up again and again was: how do my results measure against other, similar organizations?
In other words, organizations need context, a backdrop against which their data takes on real meaning. And that is what I find exciting about the work you are doing at Grameen Foundation.
I am not very familiar with Markets for Good, but I will share an anecdote from a conversation with a friend just yesterday. He was talking about gathering data about homeless people, and noted that it was one thing to gather their data and quite another to gather their opinions.
Data comes from subjects. Opinions come from partners.
[...] when one of the information intermediaries expresses their worries about Markets For Good, as in Laura Quinn’s excellent post identifying a long list of challenges and inconsistencies in the funder-driven demands for better [...]
The response below is a comment reposted with permission, from Jacob Harold of GuideStar.
...
David,
Very interesting to see this. As someone who is no longer involved in the core guidance (as it were) of Markets for Good, I can now only offer a few thoughts as a friend of the initiative:
· I’m glad to see this. In my mind, it’s the kind of friendly but frank engagement we need as a field.
· I absolutely hold onto constituency voice as a central principle of my own view of the future of social change – and, more, as a central piece of the Markets for Good vision…and, let’s hope, implementation at scale.
· But I use the indefinite pronoun “a” on purpose. On a personal level, I do not see CV as the “the” central principle – and never have (I don’t remember the 2010 agreement quite as you do). Civil society is simply too complicated and diverse for that.
· Our views of the world are all colored by our experience, and that is surely true for me. And I “grew up” professionally in the environmental movement. I can offer the too-easy argument that plants and animals can’t talk and so CV can’t apply in the same way to certain forms of public lands, ecosystem health, and biodiversity issues. But I know that’s a pat answer and it’s more complex than that: on issues with very long and complex causal chains (climate change being the archetypal example) CV simply doesn’t work as the central principle. It is absolutely critical as a central principle, but the truth is, the people being hurt are too far from the levers of power for CV to function as the core logic for social change strategy that’s actually usable by practitioners on the ground. Thus, it cannot function as the sole logic for the design of information systems for social change. (Climate isn’t alone on this; similar arguments can be made for macroeconomic policy, military interventions, global agricultural policy and other critical issues.)
· So, given that, I’d defend Markets for Good and say it is doing its best to represent the fundamental multi-dimensionality of social change strategy – with CV as one of, but not the only, absolutely essential elements of a future social change system that works better for the people, the communities, the ecosystems, and the ideals we all serve.
· The hope of technology is not just linear change, it is not merely an increase in efficiency in the current system (although I will note that, as complex systems science shows us, sometimes a linear increase in efficiency can have a nonlinear increase in impact!) The real hope is that technology facilitates new ways of thinking because it actually allows us to collect, display, and use (!) enough different kinds of information…that we can actually begin to approximate our rich and complex world. If I have anything to do with it, Constituency Voice will be right there in the center, but with all the other shades and dimensions of the strange and wonderful world of social change.
Jacob
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Gideon Rosenblatt says:
Steve, what you are talking about is important. From my experience, most social change organizations are simply not in a position to ground their evaluation efforts in broad-based data like what you are describing. Several years back, I ran a mission-driven consulting group that helped sustainability nonprofits with technology and engagement. We worked hard to get them to focus on measuring the effectiveness of their engagement efforts, but the one question that would come up again and again was: how do my results measure against other, similar organizations? In other words, organizations need context, a backdrop against which their data takes on real meaning. And that is what I find exciting about the work you are doing at Grameen Foundation. I am not very familiar with Markets for Good, but I will share an anecdote from a conversation with a friend just yesterday. He was talking about gathering data about homeless people, and noted that it was one thing to gather their data and quite another to gather their opinions. Data comes from subjects. Opinions come from partners.Special Topic: Markets For Good & Beneficiary Insight says:
[...] when one of the information intermediaries expresses their worries about Markets For Good, as in Laura Quinn’s excellent post identifying a long list of challenges and inconsistencies in the funder-driven demands for better [...]Eric J. Henderson says:
The response below is a comment reposted with permission, from Jacob Harold of GuideStar. ... David, Very interesting to see this. As someone who is no longer involved in the core guidance (as it were) of Markets for Good, I can now only offer a few thoughts as a friend of the initiative: · I’m glad to see this. In my mind, it’s the kind of friendly but frank engagement we need as a field. · I absolutely hold onto constituency voice as a central principle of my own view of the future of social change – and, more, as a central piece of the Markets for Good vision…and, let’s hope, implementation at scale. · But I use the indefinite pronoun “a” on purpose. On a personal level, I do not see CV as the “the” central principle – and never have (I don’t remember the 2010 agreement quite as you do). Civil society is simply too complicated and diverse for that. · Our views of the world are all colored by our experience, and that is surely true for me. And I “grew up” professionally in the environmental movement. I can offer the too-easy argument that plants and animals can’t talk and so CV can’t apply in the same way to certain forms of public lands, ecosystem health, and biodiversity issues. But I know that’s a pat answer and it’s more complex than that: on issues with very long and complex causal chains (climate change being the archetypal example) CV simply doesn’t work as the central principle. It is absolutely critical as a central principle, but the truth is, the people being hurt are too far from the levers of power for CV to function as the core logic for social change strategy that’s actually usable by practitioners on the ground. Thus, it cannot function as the sole logic for the design of information systems for social change. (Climate isn’t alone on this; similar arguments can be made for macroeconomic policy, military interventions, global agricultural policy and other critical issues.) · So, given that, I’d defend Markets for Good and say it is doing its best to represent the fundamental multi-dimensionality of social change strategy – with CV as one of, but not the only, absolutely essential elements of a future social change system that works better for the people, the communities, the ecosystems, and the ideals we all serve. · The hope of technology is not just linear change, it is not merely an increase in efficiency in the current system (although I will note that, as complex systems science shows us, sometimes a linear increase in efficiency can have a nonlinear increase in impact!) The real hope is that technology facilitates new ways of thinking because it actually allows us to collect, display, and use (!) enough different kinds of information…that we can actually begin to approximate our rich and complex world. If I have anything to do with it, Constituency Voice will be right there in the center, but with all the other shades and dimensions of the strange and wonderful world of social change. Jacob