How do we measure a charity’s impact? | Philippa Chong | TEDxHobart
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgR5361I8HQ Video ID: PgR5361I8HQ ============================================================ [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so Hugh here started their day with a coffee I start every day with a foreshot espresso so think about what would happen if you or a coffee lover that you know didn't have a coffee H would you get a headache I would perhaps be a little irritable that's a lie I'd be really irritable um and perhaps you might be a bit tired so these are some direct consequences of not having a coffee but there would also be some indirect consequences so perhaps because I was tired I might uh accidentally reverse into my garage door when driving to work which might make me late for work a meeting and then of course have to pay for repairs or perhaps because I missed my coffee I go for a walk with a colleague that I don't see very often and we discussed an issue they were having and I help them solve it so the same action missing my coffee could have both positive and negative indirect effects and the same happens for all of our actions including charitable ones so now I'd like you all to take a moment and think about any action of yours could be coffee could be something else and think about the Ripple effects of that action imagine that that action is a rock that you throw into a pond you're going to get that initial Splash sometimes big sometimes small and then there's going to be ripples upon the Water small waves of change that you've made now perhaps those ripples hit against a rock bouncing off causing the patterns to change Charities actions which can be things like helping people get emergency relief food access to clean water or education many other things all have Ripple effects like these understanding the changes that actions have helps us understand the impacts we're having chartic actions their impacts can be things social economical environmental and many more by understanding these impacts we're able to understand if the outcomes organizations are trying to achieve are in fact achieved now I have a background in economics law and data science I've been involved in Charities since I was very small and I've also been a measurement and evaluation director at a government agency I now run my own consulting firm specializing in forp purpose organizations which includes Charities which is why I do constantly think about the effects of my actions including if I skip that coffee so what does that mean well I'm also on the board of the Rotary Club of Hobart and they have allowed me to share some stories with you today and those highlighting their impacts and the changes and consequences both direct and indirect that they've made the first story is around some Arians who traveled to India so from Rotary Club of hobot they went to India and they met some Indian rotary clubs while they were over there and made connections with them they came back to Hobart and one of the clubs from India reached out asking for some assistance to improve the educational outcomes sorry the health outcomes of a nearby Village um they had some children that had some poor health outcomes they determined that the underlying cause of those poor health outcomes was actually some poor water quality and there was good water about a kilometer away but the village just didn't have the resources to get that water to them and have the filtration available so the clubs worked together they looked at this underlying cause to ensure that it was the true factors that were causing the bill Health outcomes they worked with the village to make sure their needs and any cultural um things were taken into account and any risks that were available or that they knew about so they could mitigate them and they built it they used local contractors they built a water well they built the pipeline infrastructure required and they built a filtration system and as a direct consequence of that there was clean water and the Children's Health improved fantastic don't worry doesn't end there there was some really indirect consequences so they found that because of the clean water more girls were now attending the school so they didn't just have better health outcomes they were getting better educational outcomes as well you think that's it no that wasn't it um part of the part of working with the local community and working with local authorities the authorities realized they were also very keen to contribute so they were because they did up the front they were able to make sure that the infrastructure was big enough that they and they built it in such a way that the clean water was actually available to everyone in the village not just the children so now we're seeing this spreading of ripples these incredible Ripple effects from the original action intending to improve health outcomes we're now seeing girls education and the whole village is getting clean water Studies have shown where there's access to clean water and improved Health outcomes there is improved productivity and there can also be improved education but there are still learnings to be had here so evaluations aren't wasted it's all right still learnings to be to be had um what this means is for future projects you should consider being able to expand it in this scenario there was enough clean water available and they were able to expand the infrastructure in such a way that the whole village could have it but in other circumstances this may not be the case so it's important to take the learnings that we get from this to be able to understand that for future projects childood projects are often not one-offs or are very similar to other project projects so the evaluations and understanding these impacts and the direct and indirect consequences allows us to continuously improve and to me continuous Improvement is fundamental to all evaluations but also our whole lives now I'll tell you about a negative consequence but before I do so I'd like you to take another moment to imagine something and I know it helps some people to close their eyes so please feel free to now imagine that you're struggling you're struggling with perhaps losing your job or you can't find work or can't work or you are working but you're just not making ends meet like you used to so you're struggling to feed yourself you're struggling to feed your families perhaps you don't need to imagine this and you're part of the 3.7 million Australian households who are struggling with food insecurity how do you feel how do you feel about having to ask for help the reason I've asked you to do this is because all of you will have different feelings about this there'll be a range of feelings in this room and some of you might feel shame or anxiety about needing to ask for help and you won't be alone it is important to recognize feelings like this it is important to recognize barriers that can affect people in take undertaking an action barriers that stop your impact and Charity's impact making the best they can consequences and barriers are known to affect projects food insecurity projects can include emergency food relief emergency food relief is things like food boxes food pantries soup kitchens and many more things research and evaluations have shown that some of the barriers and consequences to the projects surrounding emergency food relief include these feelings that you've had before shame anxiety they also show an erosion of dignity a lack of control and over longer periods of time a development of dependency and Reliance on the programs so an example of this was in a developing Nation there was a village that had been receiving food aid for a significant amount of time they were approached and they were now in a position to be able to grow some of their own food the elders however in that Village did not not feel the need to do so because they were receiving food Aid they didn't feel the need to grow their own food if the food aid program simply considered if they were feeding people they had achieved their outcome but they had this unintended consequence of creating Reliance on the program now that's not the end it's all right rotary saw this they've seen examples including this one and they sought to overcome it so they did it via an initiative called food plant Solutions which is around creating nutritional information that people can grow their own food but it's local so it develops a booklet scientific booklet that they provide to people local information and then they work with the local communities and the local organizations to give people back this feeling of empowerment to let people take back their empowerment to let you know to have people get control of their own lives you're providing them moving them from Reliance to resilience part of the initiative is Community Gardens so they partner with organizations and they help people help themselves with Community Gardens um so people get to choose what they want to grow so that's their choice they get to choose what they want to grow they helped to learn a skill and able to you know self-reliance and they get to work with others to do so and over the long term that's what it's about moving from Reliance to resilience now neither myself nor rotary is saying that this initiative has fixed all the other problems all those unintended consequences this one's fixed everything absolutely not but it has helped it has helped increase nutrition and I said helped mitigate some of those negative unintended consequences also um I will say that we have some good news that previous Village in the example has in fact been brought on board and they are uh have a space of a community garden now so does this mean that we should give up on all programs throw our hands in the air and say no there are negative unintended consequences we can't do anything we should stop feeding people no no no no please don't do that that's not what I'm saying um what it does mean is that we should consider the impact of our actions we should consider all of the consequences we should ensure that we understand our changes ensure we understand where they're making positive impacts if there are negative impacts we seek to un to make sure that we understand them we we note them and where possible we mitigate them we ensure that our impacts are having the Ripple effects we want them to have so all Charities can do this and some are already doing this quite well others are finding a variety of barriers in their way I'm going to talk about the three big barriers that I see the first one is that it's not actually that easy to always measure these ripples there's a variety you need to have data you need to be have collaboration forethought and in reality you also need money and expertise which brings us to the second Point Charities have been demonized for their administrative overheads evaluations are often part of these administrative overheads so Charities are demonized for trying to understand their impacts trying to understand the ripples that they are having and to ensure that their actions are in fact coming and making the outcomes they want and government grants now a lot of Charities rely on government grants government grants have historically not allowed charity to spend them on evaluations nor or they haven't given them enough for it nor have they given Charities the time to set the evaluations up in advance which is where they should be by the way so once again do we give up no you we have the power to do something about this we are living in an age where we now have an increased availability of data data capturing data storage and advanced data analytic tools we can use these to help us understand and understand our impacts use meaningful data in a way to show those changes and consequence we're making both in the short and the long term and you can also help by educating others on the impacts of evaluations understanding that evaluations are an investment they're investment in you in us in our community and our future and you can help and you can support Charities that are seeking to understand their impacts that are showing you what effects they're having and how they're measuring them and we can push governments we can push all levels of governments to ensure that Charities have the resources the time and the expertise to complete evaluations and understand the impacts that they are having tell them that we care about the Ripple effects that they have on our communities we care about the effects of those impacts after all we can all continuously improve including the government so hopefully as a consequence of me having my coffee this morning this talk has been relatively interesting and I've left you with this one idea that you can make a difference we can make a Difference by understanding that CH that evaluations are an investment in us and our communities and by supporting Charities that are seeking to understand and affect their impacts [Applause]