tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157535121937883722.post7528113231112877599..comments2023-12-24T07:47:42.858-05:00Comments on Community Indicators: Are your Community Indicators making a difference?Ben Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07807770212441310933noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157535121937883722.post-81130044833450568262021-11-25T12:03:17.679-05:002021-11-25T12:03:17.679-05:00Such great content.This is authentic. Are you also...Such great content.This is authentic. Are you also searching for <a href="www.nursingwritingcenter.com/tag/nursing-writing-services-login/" rel="nofollow">nursing writing services login?</a> we are the best solution for you. We are best known for delivering the besthttps://www.nursingwritingcenter.com/tag/nursing-writing-services-login/https://www.nursingwritingcenter.com/tag/nursing-writing-services-login/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157535121937883722.post-10312097380043906792009-06-29T14:13:38.307-04:002009-06-29T14:13:38.307-04:00Very much so! Thanks for your input.Very much so! Thanks for your input.Caroline Majors, cmajors@mhsmarchitects.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157535121937883722.post-40326239440980153362009-06-29T10:19:02.435-04:002009-06-29T10:19:02.435-04:00Our greatest success in raising the importance of ...Our greatest success in raising the importance of an issue is to place it in context with other issues. In other words, we were able to galvanize the community to action around infant mortality because we had previously established that infant mortality was a sentinel indicator for a series of system failures, and that measuring how well those systems were working was a critical piece of understanding the overall quality of life in our community, as important as understanding the economic vitality or environmental sustainability of the city.<br /><br />The key wasn't pointing out that infant mortality rates were high. They were, and had been for quite some time. Others had been pointing out the problem. But they had been pointing out the issue from a community health perspective, or from a child advocacy perspective. And so the recommendations for dealing with infant mortality, which involved increasing attention (and funding) for health and/or children's programming, might have been seen as self-serving. This certainly was a critically important issue to the advocates -- but why was it a critically important issue for everyone else?<br /><br />Using a tortuous analogy, you may have had a college professor (I know I had several!) who was convinced that their course was the most important thing in your life (and assigned homework. papers, and tests accordingly!) The professor seemed either oblivious or uninterested in the other demands on your time and attention, and sometimes failed to understand how their priorities fit in with a number of other priorities in your life. As a result, that professor tends to be resented more than respected. Their material may be important, even critical -- after all, you signed up for the course and bought in at least that much to the idea that this was important to you! -- but by failing to recognize the bigger picture, they lost the ability to gain people's enthusiasm. (Side note: I changed majors after dealing with one of these professors. In that case, their unreasonable disrespect of my multiple priorities created an active dislike for a subject that I had previously been pursuing vigorously. That field's loss, community indicators' gain, I suppose.)<br /><br />So what to do if you are an advocacy organization wanting to do community indicators? First, a hard self-assessment has to happen -- why are we doing indicators? If it is just to push a particular agenda forward, then we aren't doing indicators, we're researching advertising strategies. And statistics may be the wrong way to go -- see this note on Making It Stick: http://communityindicators.blogspot.com/2007/05/data-storytelling-and-making-it-stick.html <br /><br />If we are doing something broader-based, we might want to find a partner or two to help with the source credibility question. The Children's Commission reporting that "Children Are A Priority" -- not news, not interesting. The Children's Commission and the Chamber reporting that "Children Are A Priority" -- much more interesting.<br /><br />If finding a partner or outsourcing the indicators to a neutral source isn't possible, then you may need to think about what the indicators might be better suited for. Instead of a persuasive tool, they may be better used as a benchmark of progress -- performance measures in discussing how well the advocacy agenda is moving forward. That's a different function, which suggests a different theory of change. I'd go back to the model in which you're implementing the indicator set and see what function you hope to accomplish, and then see if the source issue affects that function. <br /><br />Does that help?Ben Warnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07807770212441310933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6157535121937883722.post-24809338534805742992009-06-29T09:57:07.920-04:002009-06-29T09:57:07.920-04:00Thank you for posting this material! I found the w...Thank you for posting this material! I found the webinar very helpful. <br /><br />You spoke briefly about community indicators and advocacy work --that data from advocacy organizations are generally not trusted. I am currently assisting an advocacy group in their process of developing a set of community indicators. Do you have any recommendations as to how we can, as advocates, report more compelling, trustworthy data?Caroline Majors, cmajors@mhsmarchitects.comnoreply@blogger.com