Alliance and UNCA 2011 National Conference--Disruptive Forces: Driving a Human Services Revolution

The Alliance and UNCA 2011 National Conference in Washington, D.C. was informative and useful to human service agencies of varying kinds. Sessions spanned tips on nonprofit advocacy strategies, program funding, fundraising, treatment, youth services and many more topics that could not possibly listed in short order. To find the list of conference sessions and available downloads, go here. If you have any questions on how software can help provide solutions for your human services organization, click here.

To find the list of conference sessions and available downloads, go here. If you have any questions on how software can help provide solutions for your human services organization, click here.

Quite an interesting session from the conference was Disruptive Forces: Driving a Human Services Revolution. This study seeks to offer ways in which nonprofit organizations can be successful in responding to disruptive forces. The Alliance for Children and Families conducted research and identified six disruptive forces:

• Purposeful Experimentation
• Information Liberation
• Integrating Science
• Uncompromising Demand for Impact
• Branding Causes, Not Organizations
• Attracting Investors, Not Donors

Purposeful Experimentation

Every day there is a new technology, service, or scientific advancement to meet the changing consumer needs. There is wide agreement from the majority of participants that much broader levels of experimentation will be needed within the human services sector— and that survivors will take calculated risks.

Traditionally, nonprofits and their boards have been risk averse. There was little incentive to experiment. In the next three to five years, those organizations that stay the course (i.e., they don’t think differently, quickly, and innovatively), will not succeed. Accompanying the requirement to increase risk tolerance, will be the need for new business models to adapt at-risk navigation including the ability to conduct continuous risk assessments in support of courage-based vision execution.

Funders can assist by creating endowments or other resources for research and development. Nonprofit organizations should acknowledge that risk assessments as traditionally performed have been too infrequent and conservative; therefore the nonprofit approach to risk must be recalibrated to assume a level of risk tolerance correlated to the anticipated “reward.”

Information Liberation

The human services sector has used “privacy” and “confidentiality” as an excuse to avoid developments that promote information sharing. Information sharing can improve service delivery models such that they ultimately give consumers more control over how their information is shared and allow other agencies in the same continuum to provide better care.

If the human services sector cannot embrace the systemic changes required to adapt to a disruptive force in this arena (e.g., drop-box models or constituent management systems), then consumers and other industries will ultimately enact the changes themselves.

Integrating Science

Extraordinary advances in technology will get between what is possible, what is affordable, and what is acceptable. Successful human service organizations will not only leverage these advances, but will partner with the research community to shape how these sciences can be applied cost-effectively to demonstrate impact. Boards will find themselves challenged by the ethical tension between high tech and high touch approaches.

Uncompromising Demand for Impact

Impact will be the entry ticket. The ability to demon­strate that particular interventions have efficacy will result in payment. For example, once there was proof that chiropractic care yielded successful mental and physical changes, the services were covered by health insurance.

Further, funders and communities will expect greater impact at a lower cost. The Hyundai-style approach of providing functional attributes in design and quality at a low cost has taken hold; competition will be cost based.

Sector members and agencies will first define the desired impact, and then consider what organization or groups of organizations can deliver at the lowest cost. Successful organizations will collaborate to create more complex models of accountability that clearly demonstrate impact. This will fuel strategic partnerships, program approaches, and service delivery mechanisms. Funding will be directly aligned to the ability to articulate proven, low-cost impact.

An organization, or a network of organizations, will build predictive models, approaches, or processes (e.g., A, B, and C factors mean that the likelihood of child abuse is 85 percent). Further, the actuarial models will demonstrate the cost to a community or society (e.g., every child that fails to graduate costs society $2.5 million). Methods for information collection and integration leverage low-cost technology (e.g., monitors on children to record behavior) and brain scans to show progress (e.g., heightened XYZ cortex activity) and impact of nonprofit interventions. The seductive nature of simplistic accountability will be significantly rethought. Metrics for metrics sake will not be sufficient.

Branding Causes, Not Organizations

Human services organizations have traditionally marketed themselves and their services to custom­ers and donors based on their specific offerings. In the future, it will be much more effective for these organizations to leverage causes based on issues than on their particular brand and programs. While brands can seem somewhat artificial and institutional, movements create a vision and goal for change.

Therefore, it is imperative for human services organi­zations to organize their activities in a clear, concise, and mobilizing way (e.g., “ending hunger in America” or “fighting poverty”).

In 2004, the American Heart Association4 (AHA) faced a challenge. Cardiovascular disease claimed the lives of nearly 500,000 American women each year, yet women were not paying attention. The AHA further stated that many woman dismissed it as an “older man’s disease.” To dispel the myths and raise awareness of heart disease as the number one killer of women, the American Heart Association created Go Red For Women—a passion­ate, emotional, social movement designed to empower women to take charge of their heart health. The move­ment allows individuals to provide direct support by making purchases (“Do Good by Looking Good”).

By working together to advance this important cause, the AHA; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; and other women’s health groups had a greater impact than any one group could have had alone.

Attracting Investors, Not Donors

The loss of federal dollars, growth in personal search for meaning by individual donors, and the business need for a vibrant community will require and attract inves­tors. Successful nonprofits will make a clear and concise case to specific investors from all stake­holder arenas (i.e., corporations, individuals, independent foundations, governments).

The current approach of non­profit donations will see a shift to an investment paradigm with performance-seeking portfolios aimed at a return that seeks to solve a problem, contribute to a movement, or eliminate an issue. Two primary shifts will occur:

1. Portfolios of investment directly aligned with inves­tors’ beliefs and specific expectations relative to out­comes and proven approaches
2. Capital generating tools directed at long-term solution-based research and development activities

Collaborative investment by multiple investors with a common mission will likely be the norm of the future versus individual donors supporting organizations. These investment portfolios will be driven by a convergence of values, common strategic vision, and nontraditional partnerships. The investment community will also likely have a loud voice relative to the models to be employed through their investment given their understanding of research and development and proven outcomes.

The second required shift is an effective capital market directed toward social impact (with capital raises, similar to the for-profit sector) and models which require outcomes, and link financial institutions, private investors, nonprofit leaders, and stakeholders in a multi-layered financial structure.

Micro-Level: Organization RoadmapWe envision the following questions as an assessment tool that leaders can provide to their boards to help frame provocative, strategic questions. Prior to discussing these questions, re-consider the foundational elements discussed previously in this report to ensure that the organization is poised to take advantage of the opportunities that the disruptive forces will provide.

Illuminate core competencies:

• What are your organization’s core competencies?
• What are the aspects of your mission that you are currently under-equipped to address with excellence?
• Can you identify organizations with strengths that align with these under-equipped aspects of the mission?
• Who in the organization has the expertise and enthusiasm to execute upon core competencies and form strategic partnerships?

Inspire networks:

• How can you simplify life for your clients (e.g., connecting them to complementary services in a network)?
• Who can engage in a dialogue with those organizations to identify other organizations in the network that would be beneficial to tackling a cause?
• What information is necessary to address the problem holistically and what are the barriers to accessing that information?
• How can you approach funders with a network solution to an issue, rather than a single-organization solution?

Build partnerships:

• Can you find opportunities to partner with bio-tech organizations, research institutions, or academic institutions to purposefully experiment?
• Which other organizations are key to resolving issues for your constituency, and how can you more effectively partner with them?
• Can you find corporations whose employees can find deep personal meaning and professional growth through your cause?

• In addition to cost savings, what shared services exist that could improve operations and/or help achieve your mission (e.g., human resources support to assist in talent management)?
• Who can engage funders/foundations in the discussions concerning shared service opportunities to share in the problem solving and help identify partners?
• What information systems will allow seamless information sharing and analysis?
• Secure nontraditional funding sources:
• What level of funding is truly predictable and what are options to ensure predictability?
• What steps are necessary to assess the level of capital required to innovate or create required research and development infrastructure?
• What avenues are available to secure funding through performance based investment portfolios offering long term investment levels?
• What funding collaborations are required to create the economy of scale and skills sets required to jointly resolve a community, state, or national issue?

Market success:

• How effectively (frequency, reach, message) do you articulate your goals, vision, and expected impact to investors, clients and the community?
• What do you currently do to report out on how you are doing and the specific ROI for volunteers, community members, and investors?
• What modern communication methods are you using to tell your story?
• Which broader movements, alliances, or networks do you align with or link into to show geographic or issues-based impact?

For PowerPoint presentation from conference click here

For entire study click here