Turning Data into Intelligence

There is something that fascinates me about how technology can help solve community solutions.  I am not talking about posting a cause on Facebook and asking people to "like it."  I am talking about creating a real solution or an aid to a real solution.

However, I will admit, at our DirecRelief Women's Fall Gathering when CEO, Thomas Tighe said he was going to show an interactive map of DRI's response to hurricane Sandy, I wanted to quickly get on with the topic we came to hear about, DirectRelief Women's impact on maternal child health in Africa.  But, as he showed the power of data turned into intelligence for helping DRI distribute medical supplies in response to hurricane Sandy, you could hear the room of almost 70 women gasp in amazement.

This multi-million dollar technology was taking DRI's supply chain information, combining it with partner metrics, and layering open source data on top of it at no cost to DRI.  So what exactly does that mean? 

The technology developed by Palantir, works like this:

1. It takes open source data from government agencies like NOAH and determines the hurricane's path before and after it hits. 

2. It can combine this with data from Universities on the most vulnerable socioeconomic counties to determine where there is the greatest need. 

3. DRI can then look at shipping records and medicine use trends of DRI partners in these areas to identify the most critical needs and immediately start shipping supplies.

To see this technology in action, and more examples, checkout this short video or click here:

TAKEAWAYS:

1.  The ability to use technology to solve community issues should not be underestimated.

2.  This is an excellent example of a cross sector solution.  This technology was developed by a private corporation which is using government and university data to help a nonprofit be as responsive and effective as possible with medicines provided by private corporations.  Wow!  Could we ask for anything more?

Remembering Why You are There

The other weekend, I went to the Storyteller annual gala.  I've been a big advocate of Storyteller and the importance of early childhood education for years.

But, I must admit between thinking about what I am going to wear, who we are sitting with, chatting with friends, and making sure I don't drink enough to pay the price in the morning, it's easy for me to loose site of why I am there.  Other than the three minutes when an excellent video on a Storyteller family was shown, the rest of the four hours were simply a party for me.

Then I woke up, luckily one drink shy of regret, to New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof's Sunday article.  It is as if he knew the event was the night before.  It was if he knew Paul Tough was coming to speak in SB next month on "Why Kids Succeed."

In Kristof's article, he and Tough discuss that the character strengths that matter so much to success are not innate.  They are rooted in brain chemistry by the environment in which we grow-up.   One study followed 267 children of first-time low-income mothers for nearly four decades. It found that whether a child received supportive parenting in the first few years of life was at least as good a predictor as I.Q. of whether he or she would graduate from high school.

"This means the cycle can be broken, and the implication is that the most cost-effective way to address poverty isn’t necessarily housing vouchers or welfare initiatives or prison-building. Rather, it may be early childhood education and parenting programs." 

TAKEAWAY:

My clarity is back and I am completely reminded why Storyteller continues to be one of the organizations I give my time and money to and in a twisted way, a little piece of me feels my night of celebration helped make a difference.

Is there something you support that you have forgotten why it is so important to you? 

Its Not the Subject Matter That Counts Most

Last week, Ken Saxon, the founder of Courage to Lead and our newly expanded nonprofit Leading From Within, was awarded the 2012 Man of the Year Award for his service to and impact in our community.  While I expressed what an honor it is to be working with Ken in my last post, this post is not entirely about him.

This post is about Ron Gallo's, President and CEO, Santa Barbara Foundation, speech just prior to the announcement of the award recipients.  In Mr. Gallo's speech, and I am working from memory here, he discussed that sometimes we don't take a stand because we are afraid it will be unpopular.  But, where would our community be if some of the prior Men or Women of the Year award recipients were afraid to be unpopular?  Accomplishments such as fighting for standards in Juvenile Halls and having women and minorities appointed to City Commissions might not have happened.

Mr. Gallo pointed out that wherever one chooses to get involved,  "It is not the subject matter that counts most, but rather the energy, the ingenuity, the commitment and the compassion one brings. "

TAKEAWAYS:

1) Sometimes I wonder if our town has lost the art of civil discord.  What are we not speaking up for because we are concerned about having unpopular views?  I am a strong supporter of Early Childhood Education for the underserved, but some of my friends feel those parents should not have had their children in the first place.  Do I do enough to honor their view while still making a case for these children who are members of our society or do I just politely end the conversation and ask about their child's last sports game?

2) Sometimes I have friends on a committee for a cause that is not high on my radar of importance.  I'd like to be sharing my volunteerism with these friends and connecting with them over committee meetings and other related social events, but I have to remind myself that my time is precious and I need to keep focused on the causes most important to me rather than on which of my friends are on the committee.

3) And while my friends and I do not always have the same priorities on how we give our time, and sometimes we do, I want my friends to feel supported and encouraged in whatever cause they pick because as Mr. Gallos says, "Its not the subject matter that counts most, but the energy, the ingenuity, the commitment and the compassion one brings."

This year's Man of the Year, Ken Saxon, did have to take a stand on an less popular issue.  He took a stand that community leaders cannot continue to expect nonprofit leaders to make the change we want from them if we do not give them the capacity to keep from burning out, if we do not invest in their personal development, and if we do not help them to maintain their soul with the role in a field where there will never be enough resources to feed the last child, or house the last homeless person.

What I've Been Up To

"With deep alignment of personal convictions with community purpose, applying ones knowledge and skills becomes irresistible.  There is a sense of acute purpose that stretches far beyond one's individual interests."

- Peter Karoff

This quote represents to me everything about why anyone is driven to be philanthropic.  I've had the pleasure of being introduced to and working with Peter Karoff over the last few months.  Peter founded The Philanthropic Initiative over 20 years ago.  TPI is a nonprofit organization that serves as an ally to donors who aspire to effective philanthropy, and promotes philanthropy through research, and education.  I can't believe how lucky Santa Barbara is to have Peter as an active member of our philanthropic community.

Peter and I are now working with a nonprofit called Leading From Within.  Leading From Within has been offering high quality leadership development and renewal through its Courage to Lead program for almost five years.  It was founded by another amazing community resource, Ken Saxon.  In the last six months Ken and I have expanded the organization to three programs which includes:

• Courage to Lead - now in its fifth year, a leadership development and renewal program for mid to late career nonprofit leaders
• Emerging Leaders Program - a new program for leadership development for the next generation of nonprofit leaders
• Katherine Harvey Fellows - a 12 year old leadership development program for future community leaders from diverse professional backgrounds run in partnership with the Santa Barbara Foundation

It has absolutely been my pleasure to work with and learn from these aspirational gentleman who have given decades of their time to making our communities a stronger place through the gift of their time to their thoughtful, reflective approach to their passion for learning.

While my blogging has and will slow down, I look forward to sharing the many lessons of philanthropy with you as we launch our programs in January of 2013.  

Knowing How You Like to Solve Problems

We have all experience that moment when we are in a group trying to solve an issue and we think we know what to do, when suddenly someone speaks up with an idea we would have never thought of that also works.  Perhaps, the two solutions together is even the best solution.  Solving our communities' issues is no different.

The other month, WiserGiving came out with the WiserGiving Style Tool.  The purpose of the tool is to identify how you like to solve problems so that you know better how to focus your philanthropic energies, be it time or money.  Wiser Giving has created six different giving styles:

1. building movements
2. providing direct services
3. making change stick
4. increasing effectiveness
5. public policy
6. research and big ideas

The five minute quiz determines your dominant style by asking you to rate the two types of action you think would be most valuable and effective for addressing eight different major issues of our time.

What I found fascinating was being enlightened to the categories of actions that together solve a problem.  I may not have even been aware of the way you think it's important to solve our community's issues, but it's the fusion of people supporting each of these giving styles that create the real change.
 
For instance:

• To address education would you support analyzing which programs have been the most effective (research and big ideas) or support promoting legislation that enriches schools (public policy).

• To address environmental issues would you support organizing more people to get involved with the issue (building a movement) or support organizations that ensure environmental laws are adhered to (making change stick)

• To address working poor would you support providing skills training (direct services) or strengthening grassroots organizations (increase effeciency).

The quiz gives you six choices per major issue, but you get my idea.  What I think is the most valuable way to solve an issue might not be the same as you think.


TAKEAWAY:

It's interesting to know your own giving style so you can spend your time and money in a way that fuels your soul, but it's equally interesting to learn the other ways to a solve problem.

There is no one right way (or giving style) to solve our communities' issues, but knowing about the other ways to address issues and encouraging the fusion between each of these approaches will support real change.


Thank you to Beth's Blog: Nonprofits and Social Media for connecting me to WiserGiving.

Successful Pathways Minus Standardize Tests

In honor of graduation season, a challenge of the definition of student success.

Sir Ken Robinson said that there is no singular utilitarian pathway for every kid and success lies in providing multiple pathways that brings out the talents and passion in people rather than a standardize test.

One program that sheds light on limitations of standardize as a predictor of success is the Posse Foundation. I read about it in my favorite online NYT column, Fixes, titled Beyond SATs, Finding Success in Numbers.

This article talks about how the Posse Foundation,  takes high school students who were clearly leaders — dynamic, intelligent, creative, resilient — but who might not have had the SAT scores to get into good schools and groups them into posses of 10 students from the same city that go together to an elite college tuition-free.

"Most Posse Scholars would not have qualified for their colleges by the normal criteria. Nevertheless, they succeed. Ninety percent of Posse Scholars graduate — half of them on the dean’s list and a quarter with academic honors."

It discusses that these stories of success tells us not just that the SAT is an inadequate predictor of college success, but that it can be malignant.  It shows that academic performance does not completely determine college success. There are other important factors: whether a student has social support, a sense of belonging and a network that can offer advice.  Minority students often do not have these sources of support as naturally as non-minority students. 


Take-aways:

1. Do Not Limit My View of Success

I grew up with a traditional and limited view of what was success as a student.  But, as Sir Ken Robinson says, success is not a linear path.  This was obvious to me the other month when I interviewed students for the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara .  I did seven interviews which consisted of:

• seven different students
• seven differed backgrounds from traditional high achieving families to non-english speaking families to abusive families
• seven different paths to success from high achieving G.P.A's to finding success through journalism, sports, or entrepreneurship to finding their way back to main stream high school after failing out to overcoming learning challenges
• seven different college dreams from Ivy League schools, to Junior Colleges, to trade schools, to schools with extra support for learning challenges

Who is considered more successful, the child from a traditional family with traditional academic success or the child who raised himself from a failing G.P.A to a C+ or the child that learned important leadership skills through sports, or the child that stepped up and saved one of the high school student programs.  Is success simply a GPA and a test score?  The younger me would have said yes, but the older me is learning to be open minded.


2.  Do Not Underestimate the Importance of a Support Community

This is especially important when we think about solving community issues.  I have had the pleasure of working on developing an emerging nonprofit leaders program.  The number one thing these leaders say they need is a community of support, a network to work through ideas and to offer advice.  If our community leaders say a support community is the number one thing they need to stay fueled to address issues, imagine how important a support community is to the underserved in helping them solve their own issues.

The Loss of Creativity and Innovation

"If school's function is to create the workers we need to fuel our economy, we need to change school, because the workers we need have changed as well."

-Seth Godin

If you have been within ten feet of me this last month,  you've been subject to the rant I've been on about standardize testing and the loss of creativity, innovation and critical thinking skills in our education system.

Specifically, I've been ranting about how my 8th grader will need to pass a standardize test for the high school to allow her to not repeat Algebra I as a freshman.   For someone with a history of weak test taking, the fact that my daughter needs to show a year's worth of knowledge on a single day, on a single test seems obsurd to me.  To further my frustration, I learned that the high school only requires the private school kids to take this test and not the public school kids.

So I've been ranting about how this is exactly what's wrong with our education system and how a single standardize test isn't the only way for a child to show proof of knowledge.  Isn't proof of knowledge what we are looking for regardless of the method used to identify it?  For some, this is like saying the sky isn't blue.

It didn't help that I saw Sir Ken Robinson speak this month on how our education system is based on utility and linearity with the assumption that we can predict the single best path for all. "We've designed a system that kills the discovery of talents and passion.  A system that alienates students.  No wonder they drop out," says Sir Ken

It didn't help that Seth Godin published a 30,000 word manifesto, Stop Stealing Dreams, pointing out that the public school system was designed during the industrial revolution to churn out good factory workers.  He also points out that the multiple choice test was designed during a crises in World War I when the male factory workers enlisted in masses.  The government needed a temporary and effecient way to sort immigrant students and quickly assign them slots in the factories.  The creator of the multiple choice test says this about the methodology he developed, "This is a test of lower order thinking for the low orders."

It didn't help that the other week, at Partnership for Excellence, when asked what keeps her up at night, that the women on the panel representing the Health Careers Collaborative stated, "Employers comments that we've lost a generation of people with critical thinking skills."

It didn't help that an expert on early childhood education for low income families told me that she is seeing a wave of low income kids being medicated in schools.  Unfortunately, this is not always because they have true issues requiring medication, but instead these kid's behavioral problems are due to unresolved social and emotional trauma from their home lives.  Kids are being medicated to fit into the system because the system isn't flexible enough to fit their needs.


So it's been a month of ranting and what have I learned from it?


TAKE-AWAY #1:

My loss of sleep about my own daughter turned out for not.  The public high school made the sane decision to not standardize test the private school kids as the sole determinant of their math placement.  Thank you for renewing my faith.  However, if she had bombed the test, which many capable kids did last year, I would have fought tooth and nail that the results of the test were not an accurate proof of knowledge.  Every time I push back on the system for my own daughter, I am pushing back on the system for other children who don't have an engaged (okay, sometimes too engaged) parent to do it for them.


TAKE-AWAY #2:

I imagine my battles aren't over.  However, I have been impressed with the high school's talk about creating different pathways for kids.  I am proud of them for seeing that there is no singular utilitarian pathway for every kid and success lies in providing multiple pathways.  For this reason, you will see me donating my time to supporting the existence of these different pathways with programs like MAD and VADA.


TAKE-AWAY #3:

I need to push myself to think outside of the box.  I am naturally a linear, in the box thinker and yes, the school system was just perfect for me.  However, without creativity and innovation we wouldn't have people thinking like the biomedical engineers in my last post, who are creating innovative solutions to health issues in developing countries.  I am also reminded of a post I did a year ago where I realized we need creative and innovative thinkers to find solutions to gobal development issues, not factory workers.

TAKE-AWAY #4:

As for the lower income kids being alienated from the system or being medicated to fit the system, my heart bleeds for them.  I continue to have faith in early childhood education programs, like Storyteller.  I truly believe being ready for kindergarten, as shown on the Cradle to Career Roadmap, including being socially and emotionally ready, is the single first critical benchmark on the path to college.

Boimedical Engineering IS Philanthropy

When I think of philanthropy, I think about giving time or money to help a cause.  Last month, I saw Dr. Harshad Sanghvi, an internationally recognized expert on maternal/child health, speak.  He made me think about philanthropy in way that had not occurred to me.

Dr. Sanghvi made a poignant point on the impact Community Health Workers, with minimal training, can have on reducing  the over two million child birth related deaths a year.  However, he also made me realize the importance of bioengineering on making these Community Health Workers successful. 

I am not a person naturally drawn to science and could probably not define the term bioengineering if asked.  However,  Dr. Sanghvi pointed out the urgent need for culturally adapted, extremely affordable, and easy to us tools for people with almost no training.

For example, preeclampsia/eclampsia is one of the main sources of maternal/child deaths.  One of the innovations the bioengineering field is working on is a blood pressure cuff that is simple enough for use by Community Health Workers who may not even know how to read, durable enough for harsh, rural environments, and takes advantage of large manufacturers to reduce the price.  

Another solution for detecting preeclampsia/eclampsia is a Magic Marker test.  This device allows the Community Health Worker to test protein levels in a pregnant women with a special pen that is easily portable and costs less than a penny.  Early detection of this number two killer of pregnant women is lifesaving for both mother and baby.  You can see a brief video about Dr. Sanghvi's work and the Magic Marker here.

Postpartum hemorrhaging is another leading cause of death in the developing world for delivering mothers.  This is a condition women almost never die of in the United States.  To help solve this problem, bioengineers have developed a pill for women in remote, rural communities which greatly reduces their risk of postpartum hemorrhaging.  The Community Health Worker gives it to the pregnant women to carry with her at all times and is taken at the onset of labor.

Another example that illustrates the need for innovated minds focused on solutions to health problems in the developing world is a new way to test for cervical cancer.  Eight-five percent of the 250,000 women who die of cervical cancer are in poor countries.  In some countries, if a women was even able to get to a doctor for a pap smear, it would take years for the labs to have the capacity to evaluate the results. Experts at John Hopkins Medical School have developed a simple procedure where a health worker can use vinegar to detect precancerous spots and the ability to freeze them off immediately with carbon dioxide, available from any Coca-Cola bottling plant. New York Times

A new alliance between Jhpiego, John Hopkins Center for Bioenginnering Innovation and Design, and Laerdal Global Health called Day of Birth Alliance, has committed to developing and producing 10-15 products to reduce maternal/child health in the developing world.


TAKE AWAY:

Bioengineering might not define myself as your Everyday Philanthropist, but I am glad that it defines the organizations and people who are committed to developing innovations to reduce everyday fatal risks in poor communities, risks that don't even cross our minds, let alone that we associate as fatal.

As Dr. Sanghvi says, "There's no point in having technologies that are super duper but can get only to two-percent of the population. We need those kinds of technologies that can get to everybody and that everybody can afford."

Flow and Skill Based Volunteering

This past year I heard about a psychological concept that is a determinant of happiness called "flow".  Flow is a mental state where a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.  The more moments of flow in your life the greater your happiness.

When do you experience flow in your life?  In my prior professional life,  I didn't use the word flow, but I knew that I felt the most rewarded when I worked with a group of people toward a common goal, each bringing our professional best.  In my volunteer work, I've noticed something similar, when I can apply my professional skills to help a non-profit, I feel that same sense of flow.

The trouble is, it's easy to find opportunities for event planning, other fundraising, long term board commitments, one day beach clean-ups, etc., but it's trickier to match an array of various professional skills with non-profit needs to make an impact and experience your own sense of flow.

So how do you find a volunteer opportunity that will enhance your own happiness while doing good?

1.  My first suggestion is to just start thinking about the concept and what you would like to offer?  What professional background or skills do you have?  Some suggestions include expertise in:

•  Design
• Strategic Planning
• Finance/Acoounting
• Marketing
• IT
• Architecture
• Project Planning
• Development
• Business Planning
• Governance

2.  Think of causes you care about?  Get to know organizations that support these causes and look for ways to help them using your skills?  Don't wait for a silver plated invitation to engage them in a conversation.

3.  When asked to make a volunteer commitment ask yourself if this will be a rewarding commitment for you or just another thing on your "to do" list?

4.  Check out the following resources.  These websites can help you tap into the right volunteering opportunity for you, but there's a lot of room for growth.

• Volunteer Match
• Partner in Education - while many of the requests center around traditional educational help, there are also requests for speaking about your field of expertise, job shadowing, and helping with mock job interviews.
• Sparked - This site lets your micro volunteer online.  You submit you area of knowledge and they hook you up with online opportunities to help a non-profit.  They will also email you suggests that they think are a good fit for you as they come in.
• Volunteer Guide - This sites lets you state the amount of time you want to give and helps you find a match for your time and interests.

Two amazing organizations not yet serving the Santa Barbara area are Taproot and Catchfire both offering high level skill based volunteering opportunities.  I'd love to see the skill based volunteering market expand in Santa Barbara.