D ATA - D R I V E N D E C I S I O N - M A K I N G I N S T I T U T E : I M P R O V I N G T H E E C O N O M I C S TA B I L I T Y O F W O R K I N G FA M I L I E S I N N O R T H T E X A S
THE YEARBOOK: LESSONS LEARNED AGENCIES CHANGED I M PA C T R E A L I Z E D
Karen Caston of Arlington Life Shelter talks with program coach Richard Amory during a D3 meeting. Arlington Life Shelter participated in the D3 2014-2015 class.
D 3 : U S I N G D ATA T O C H A N G E L I V E S
T
he picture of Dallas that emerged from a study released in 2012 debunked the prevailing thought that the city and the surrounding North Texas region were filled with people earning comfortable incomes. The Dallas Assets & Opportunity Profile, produced by the Corporation for Enterprise Development, revealed that 39 percent
of the city’s households were living in asset poverty, with even more at risk of falling into poverty. The study also found that 68 percent of Dallas residents had subprime credit scores, and more than half of low-income residents did not have health insurance, placing them at financial risk in the event of a medical crisis. These statistics illuminated a tenuous economic state for many Dallasites, an important factor since financial insecurity can destabilize a community longterm.
With the study’s findings in hand, Communities Founda-
“D3 has really shaped the conversation about data and outcomes in our sector.” - Kimberly Williams Executive Director Interfaith Housing Coalition
tion of Texas set out to improve the financial stability of low-income working families by bringing together social service agencies who serve them, and training the agencies to use data strategically. The ultimate goals: to help agencies understand the contemporary issues of lowincome families; use data to drive decisions about ser-
vices, clients and funding needs; and create learning communities within the nonprofit sector.
Based on this, the Data-Driven Decision Making Institute was born. Known among the competitively selected participating social service agencies as ‘D3,’ the Institute provided the agencies’ leadership and program staff with targeted learning opportunities. For nine months, agencies participated in monthly classroom-style workshops, received one-onone coaching and built relationships with each other to enhance services.
Since 2012, 46 nonprofits have participated in D3. Leaders of many of the organizations have called it a game-changing experience. “It made a change in my life, and it made me more valuable as a team member,” said Jane Waters, Director of Operations for Healing Hands, a community-based medical and dental clinic and a member of the D3 class of 2013. “I’m so truly grateful.”
This yearbook provides a peek into the agencies’ D3 experiences. It highlights the growth the agencies experienced in the areas of confidence, leadership and team development, as well as their expanded abilities to empower clients. We hope you find the stories included here to be as inspiring as we do.
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THE DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING INSTITUTE YEARBOOK A SPECIAL PUBLICATION
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S 2 D3: USING DATA TO CHANGE L I V E S Communities Foundation of Texas set out to improve the financial stability of working families in North Texas by training social service agencies to use data to create solutions with sustainable impact. 5 BRENT CHRISTOPHER’S C H A R G E : From our President and CEO: “Take what you’ve gained in D3 and revolutionize society at an even bigger scale.”
6 WORDS OF WENDE BURTON: From the Community Philanthropy Director: “I’m excited to see where the future leads as the participating agencies continue the journeys started in D3.” 6 THOUGHTS FROM SARAH COTT O N N E L S O N : From the Chief Philanthropy Officer: “Thank you for sharing with us both what you needed and what you wanted, for D3’s success is based on that as its foundation.” 7 A G E N C I E S A T A G L A N C E Summaries of the 46 nonprofits participated in D3 during its three-year run.
A representative from a social service agency lists what she expects to gain by participating in D3, a nine-month curriculum and seminar series created by Communities Foundation of Texas.
AGENCY SPOTLIGHTS
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Healing Hands eclipses the tipping point of its evolution. Interfaith Housing Coalition grows out of its quarter-life crisis. And VMLC stretches to do more than teach literacy skills.
9 M A K I N G N E W F R I E N D S Inaugural D3 class members say they built valuable relationships with each other. “The energy in the room was contagious,” a year one participant said. 1 9 G O , T E A M , G O D3’s year two agencies say they gained team-building muscle. “D3 made our staff better,” a year two participant said.
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The Richardson Adult Literacy Center proves to be small, but mighty. SafeHaven redefines what it means to save a life. Sharing Life Community Outreach settles into grandness. And the Wilkinson Center finds confidence in numbers.
3 1 N E W S T O R I E S T O T E L L D3’s year three classmates say storytelling was a big take away. “Storytelling changed our perspective on what we wanted our story to say and how we wanted to get it across,” a year three participant said.
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Arlington Life Shelter gains a new sense of freedom. Interfaith Ministries of Denton moves from “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mode to one of deep impact. Housing Crisis Center learns how to dream. And Services of Hope finds the value of real change.
BACK COVER FINAL THOUGHTS Community partners share their enthusiasm for how D3 has transformed the North Texas social services arena.
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Pictured left to right: Mary Beth Gonzales and David Woody of Volunteers Of America Texas and Richard Amory of North Texas Food Bank.
“D3 started a conversation that is changing how human services are offered and evaluated in North Texas. It gave us permission to question what we’ve been doing, tools to help us think differently, and a community to support us through it.” - Richard Amory D3 Coach and Director of Research for the North Texas Food Bank
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A C H A R G E F R O M B R E N T E . C H R I S TO P H E R : LEAD A REVOLUTION FOR A BET TER NORTH TEXAS
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magine that we are gathered in an auditorium, a football field or maybe a modest, but pleasant community hall. Our reason for gathering is you - the 46 agencies who participated in the three classes of CFTs’ Data-Driven Decision-Making Institute. You have completed the nine-month cur-
riculum to become D3 graduates - not a far stretch, since your D3 experience probably felt a bit like school at times – and I have the honor of being your commencement speaker. Brent E. Christopher President and CEO
Commencement speakers often tell graduates to take what they’ve learned and find personal success. But you’re a different kind of graduate. You came to D3 with a wealth of success already serving
working families. In fact, you were chosen to participate in D3 not only because of what you could be taught about how to use data when making programming decisions, but also because of what you could teach us about the real-world challenges of our neighbors who struggle to make ends meet. So, instead of telling you how to succeed in the neighborhoods you already know well, I challenge you to take what you’ve gained in D3 and revolutionize society at an even bigger scale. Make it true that all low-income working families in our region are empowered to create sustainable lives.
This revolution is desperately needed now. We learned in 2012 from the local Assets & Opportunity Profile produced
by the Corporation For Enterprise Development - the impetus for creation of D3 – that one in three area households could not survive for three months above the poverty line if they experienced a job loss or financial emergency. They are asset poor. While the economy has improved since then, significant asset poverty remains. Plus, Texas still counts among its residents an estimated 1.95 million people earning minimum wage with an annual income that actually falls below the federal income poverty line. While you are using critical data successfully to develop lasting solutions to the social and economic problems of our area, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the issues. Nonetheless, our charge must be to fundamentally redefine the meaningful options available to this whole crucial segment of society, for the sake of building financially stable families and strong, healthy communities.
So as you reminisce about your D3 experience and reflect on the ways you have already started using what you learned to create positive change in the lives of your clients, I urge you to think beyond the walls of your agency. Look beyond the boundaries of your service area. Lead a revolution that not only helps your clients, but changes our world for the better. Generations of North Texans now and yet to come are depending on nothing less.
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W O R D S F R O M W E N D E B U R TO N : W E C E L E B R AT E YO U A N D YO U R D 3 S U C C E S S
D
3 grew out of an audacious “what if” question. After learning from the Asset & Opportunity Profile that a larger than imaginable swath of people in the area were economically vulnerable, and thinking about how CFT could best support the nonprofit service providers,
we asked ourselves: what if we gathered agencies that serve low-income, working people together and focused on how they can use data? The result was D3, a unique program that gave agencies the Wende Burton Community Philanthropy Director
skills and tools to create data-informed solutions to the social and economic problems facing lowincome working families.
When we started D3, we couldn’t have imagined this would be so successful. The 46 highly competent agencies that participated D3 amazed us. They have formed new partnerships that have led to new programs and great client outcomes. Several of the agencies are getting national attention for their work. And fellow funders and respected partners, such as the United Way, acknowledge D3’s impact in the nonprofit sector as a whole. I am supremely proud of all of the D3 agencies. It has been my honor to get to know you and your programming at a deeper level. I’m excited to See Words from Wende Burton, page 44
T H O U G H T S F R O M S A R A H C O T TO N N E L S O N : D3 BRINGS MORE THAN IMAGINABLE SUCCESS
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n 2011, CFT asked nonprofits serving people in poverty or at risk for falling into poverty what was most needed in Dallas to better serve families considered to be “the working poor.” The first answer that came back was data – quality information to shed light on a growing population in
need, particularly following the financial crisis. Then, many of the nonprofits we were speaking with took a deep breath and gave a second answer: data alone would not be enough. Their staffs were Sarah Cotton Nelson Chief Philanthropy Officer
lean and they needed people and resources to process the data, assign it meaning, and create new strategies based on that information.
We owe all of you that we consulted during that time a debt of gratitude for your courage to give words to that truth. We likely would never have created D3 without those key reflections. Thank you for sharing with us both what you needed and what you wanted, for D3’s success is based on that foundation.
A second thank you goes to the early D3 classes that contributed key insights based on your experiences so we could Continued on page 48 6
PA R T I C I PAT I N G A G E N C I E S AT A G L A N C E A r l i n g t o n L i f e S h e l t e r provides shelter and support services to help homeless people integrate into society and become self-sufficient.
C r o s s r o a d s C o m m u n i t y S e r v i c e s provides food, clothing and life skills education to those in need; and partners with educational and medical institutions to seek solutions to social and economic problems.
A V A N C E fosters parenting knowledge and skills that impact children’s development, and empowers parents to achieve their educational and professional goals.
D a l l a s A r e a H a b i t a t f o r H u m a n i t y uses affordable homeownership opportunities, financial education, advocacy efforts and neighborhood empowerment programs to transform families, revitalize neighborhoods and build communities.
B r y a n ’ s H o u s e serves children with medical or developmental needs and their families by providing specialized child care, respite care and social services.
D a l l a s L e a d e r s h i p F o u n d a t i o n develops leaders to rebuild underserved communities.
B u i l d e r s o f H o p e transforms urban areas by building affordable housing and offering homebuyer/ asset building education and workforce development programs.
Family Pathfinders of Tarrant County works to strengthen the community by empowering individuals and families to attain self-sufficiency.
C a t h o l i c C h a r i t i e s o f D a l l a s works to strengthen families, alleviate hunger and prevent homelessness.
G a l a x y C o u n s e l i n g C e n t e r provide innovative mental health services to enrich the lives of the children, adults and families in our community.
Center for Transforming Lives (formerly YWCA of Fort Worth & Tarrant County) works to empower women by removing barriers to self-sufficiency.
G e n e s i s W o m e n ’ s S h e l t e r provides shelter, safety, counseling and expert services to battered women and their children.
Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin C o u n t y provides safety, healing and justice for children victimized by abuse or neglect in Collin County.
Grapevine Relief and Community Exc h a n g e ( G R A C E ) provides food, clothing, financial assistance and other necessities to people who are struggling with a limited income or recent emergency.
C i t y S q u a r e works to fight the root causes of poverty through service, advocacy and friendship.
H . I . S . B r i d g e B u i l d e r s mobilizes the Body of Christ to alleviate poverty and promote flourishing communities.
C o m m u n i t y E n r i c h m e n t C e n t e r provides the resources, tools and encouragement low-income families need to improve their lives and become selfsufficient.
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Garland builds affordable homes for low-income families so they may live and grow into all that God intends.
C o m m u n i t y L i f e l i n e helps people manage crises and navigate their way back to self-sufficiency through financial assistance, job search training, credit and budget counseling, and advocacy.
H e a l i n g H a n d s M i n i s t r i e s brings quality, lowcost health care to the medically disadvantaged through a medical and dental clinic.
C o r n e r s t o n e A s s i s t a n c e N e t w o r k helps churches, organizations and volunteers become involved in the lives of the people in their community.
H o u s i n g C r i s i s C e n t e r works to prevent homelessness and stabilize those at risk in decent, affordable, permanent housing, and to empower them to solve their own housing problems in the future. 7
I n t e r f a i t h H o u s i n g C o a l i t i o n provides transitional housing and self-sufficiency for homeless families.
T h e L a d d e r A l l i a n c e provides women victims of domestic violence or low-income women with the tools to lead self-reliant, successful lives.
I n t e r f a i t h M i n i s t r i e s o f D e n t o n provides emergency assistance for basic needs with the goal of helping people become self-sufficient.
T h e R i c h a r d s o n A d u l t L i t e r a c y C e n t e r provides English as a second language (ESL) instruction for adults.
I n t e r n a t i o n a l R e s c u e C o m m i t t e e delivers life-saving care to people fleeing conflict and natural disaster.
T h e S e n i o r S o u r c e assists older adults at all income levels with job searches, nursing home advocacy, money management, volunteer opportunities and counseling on any aging issue.
I r v i n g C a r e s provides people with temporary assistance and training to promote self-sufficiency.
T r a n s f o r m a n c e (formerly Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Dallas) works to empower individuals and families to achieve financial freedom.
J e w i s h F a m i l y S e r v i c e s provides professional, effective and affordable mental health and social services to promote lifelong self-sufficiency and wellbeing for anyone in need.
V M L C provides English literacy classes for adults and children.
L a u n c h A b i l i t y works to help adults with cognitive disabilities assimilate into the workforce.
V o g e l A l c o v e provides free, quality child development services for homeless children ages six weeks to five years old.
L i t e r a c y I n s t r u c t i o n F o r T e x a s ( L I F T ) offers free, easily accessible classes so that functionally illiterate adults can learn to read and write English.
V o i c e o f H o p e provides children with strong character models, education support, life skills and family support services.
N E T W O R K o f C o m m u n i t y M i n i s t r i e s responds to human need by giving assistance with the goal of helping individuals achieve long-term independence.
V o l u n t e e r s o f A m e r i c a T e x a s provides compassionate, caring service for the most vulnerable people in society to help them fulfill their potential.
N o r t h D a l l a s S h a r e d M i n i s t r i e s helps lowincome people assume as much responsibility for their lives as they are able.
W i l k i n s o n C e n t e r a poverty rescue and prevention agency for the working poor that offers hope, inspiration, and the basic necessities and tools to empower people to become self-sufficient.
S a f e H a v e n o f T a r r a n t C o u n t y provides services at no cost to domestic violence victims through outreach, education, support services and prevention programs.
WINGS (formerly YWCA of Metropolitan D a l l a s ) works to empower women by removing barriers to self-sufficiency.
S e r v i c e s o f H o p e works to transform underperforming elementary schools through programs that produce academically successful fifth-graders.
W i s d o m ' s H o p e provides transitional housing and services for low income families who have a child with special health needs.
S h a r i n g L i f e C o m m u n i t y O u t r e a c h helps individuals and families with food, clothing, utility assistance, educational enrichment and jobs skills training.
Y M C A o f M e t r o p o l i t a n D a l l a s works to make sure that everyone, regardless of age, income or background, has the opportunity to learn, grow and thrive. 8
CLA
AVA N C E
Builders of Hope Catholic Charities of Dallas CitySquare Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity G e n e s i s Wo m e n ’s S h e l t e r Healing Hands Ministries H.I.S. BridgeBuilders 9
ASS OF 2012-2013
Interfaith Housing Coalition
J e w i s h Fa m i l y S e r v i c e s L i t e r a c y I n s t r u c t i o n F o r Te x a s ( L I F T ) NETWORK of Community Ministries North Dallas Shared Ministries The Senior Source VMLC WINGS (formerly YWCA of Metropolitan Dallas) 10
THOUGHTS FROM THE CLASS OF 2012-2013 “Using what we learned in D3, we fine-tuned and streamlined our data to tell a better story. D3 gave us a greater ability to focus on what is important – the facts. The experience opened our organization up to learn more about the low income community. As a result, we are developing longer term informational programs for our clients.” - Anne Thomas, Executive Director [AVANCE]
“Data is cool now. Programmatic outcomes are changing with the development of our new strategic plan, which is informed by our heightened focus on data. Decisions and plans are not based on intuition, but rather historical data. As we move forward, we will go in with greater tools because of our experience in D3.” - Damon Polk, Chief Operating Officer
“D3 was helpful to us in thinking about collective impact. It provided some language and some frames for which we could view our work at our Opportunity Center.” - John Siburt, President and Chief Operating Officer
“D3 gave us an opportunity to engage with fellow D3 agencies and provided a common framework for discussion. It also allowed us to delve into our family-centric data, resulting in the development and implementation of our first three-year family evaluation tool. Finally, we were able to complete our transition to being a data reliant agency that is committed to developing and funding programs based on best practices recognized through data collection and analysis.” - Bill Hall, Chief Executive Officer
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"The program exposed us to so much Information around asset building and was influential in shaping our thinking on outcomes we really needed to gather for serving our clients better. D3 also helped to frame our outlook on partnerships and what we need to inform strong and sustainable relationships." - Justin Banta, Strategic Development Manager/Project Lead
“Through our D3 experience, we realized we were collecting far more information than we needed or used. For example, LIFT has always collected and analyzed pre- and post-testing results and anecdotal information about the benefits of increased literacy for our adult learners. However, we were not sufficiently surveying our volunteer teachers and mentors to understand how best to invest in their training and retention. Today, an integral part of our decision making is to measure and gauge our efforts and outcomes related to helping our students and volunteers reach their goals. This is a more effective way to inform our curriculum delivery, and is a direct result of our D3 experience.” - Lisa Hembry, Executive Director
“We’ve gotten stronger with collaborations related to human capital - building teams and working with other organizations. Being able to have communication around common areas, each cannot change the whole, but as a community we can serve the whole person.” - Alice Mae Britt, Chief Executive Director
“We have different conversations when establishing collaborations. We spend more time developing common goals and shared measurement tools, and really look at the activities we can change to make the collaboration meaningful for our clients.” - Susan Smithson, Chief Operating Officer
Note: WINGS is formerly YWCA of Metropolitan Dallas
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SP OTLIGH T Healing Hands Ministries
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n 2012, Healing Hands Ministries was ready to grow. The grassroots medical and dental clinic that opened its doors five years earlier was making plans to move into a new facility and
launching a capital campaign. The agency’s leadership knew it would need to prepare for growth by telling stories of impact. “If you kept your ear to the ground and watched what was happening in the nonprofit sector at that time, you knew that the rumble on the street was that you’ve got to start being able to report your impact,” said Janna Gardner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Healing Hands. CFT recognized that the agency had reached a tipping point
Erika Caballaro Zamora visits the Healing Hands Ministries medical and dental clinic in its evolution and invited its staff to participate in the 2012-13 D3 with her children: Fatima, nine months, Helcohort — an opportunity that Gardner called a blessing. “It gave us the ena, 3, and Fernando, 8, (not pictured) who was receiving dental services. Erika was the opportunity to learn something that might make us more competitive first of her family to come to HHM two years ago after a neighbor referred her.
in the philanthropy world,” Gardner said. Additionally, D3 impacted
Healing Hands tangibly when the agency received level three status as a patient-centered medical home, a model for organizing and delivering primary care. An agency’s recognition level is awarded by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. The highest level an agency can receive is level three. Here’s more from Gardner and Jane Waters, the director of operations of Healing Hands, who attended each of the D3 sessions.
Deep diving “The D3 training really changed our thinking about how to process data. It taught us to look broader and deeper, so our whole perspective on how we collect data is totally different now. For instance, D3 was happening at the time that we
were looking at a new electronic medical record system and I wanted us to have the capacity to create reports that allowed us to slice and dice the data the way we needed. This made us think on the front end and be intentional about having the right tool to support our needs. We previously used electronic medical record at a very basic level to see how many patients we’ve seen and how many visits we’ve had. Now, we’re looking at the diagnosis each patient has and asking what’s the impact. We’re measuring the health outcomes. We’ve put together a quality committee that members from all areas of the clinic sit on, and we actually are looking at the evidence-based guidelines for different diagnoses and then making changes.” - Gardner
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“D3 impacted our clinic through our patient centered medical home recognition by helping us reach level three status.
This took about four months to accomplish and required pulling data and reports that filled two four-inch binders. The presentations, the work and the assignments in D3 stretched and helped me understand how to use data for this process. I learned that reports are not just sitting there saying, ‘Jane, choose me.’ There is not a report that tells you exactly what you want, but you may have two reports with one that tells this part and another that tells that part and you can combine the two. If I hadn’t been to D3, I really would not have been prepared to mine the data and understand how it needed to be used to help us get to level three.“ – Waters
“We’ve hired a director of quality and
compliance
because
of
what
we
“The D3 training really changed our thinking
learned in D3. We saw the need to have
about how to process data. It taught us to look
someone who is solely responsible for
broader and deeper, so our whole perspective
the quality of the data. Because of
on how we collect data is totally different
what we learned, I was able to go to our board and show the justification for
now.” Janna Gardner
a new position and what that would mean for the organization. That would not
have
happened
without
President and Chief Executive Officer, Healing Hands Ministries
the
knowledge we obtained at D3.” - Gardner
Quality and quantity “Our grant proposals are much more sophisticated now because we know how to tell our story. The quality of the reports we were giving to funders showing impact has been greater. Typically, the rate of return for grants is about eight percent and we run on average 12 percent. That kind of speaks for itself. One of the key things we talked about in D3 was telling your story. Well, I’m good at storytelling, but I’m not a data person. I understood that data was important, but I thought it was dry and non-creative. But when we talked about telling our story in D3, I started to have a light bulb moment. I realized that’s what data could do. It wasn’t just sitting there in a nice spreadsheet. It could drive how we told our story and show how we make an impact. D3 taught us that when funders are asking for specific data, they may not be familiar with how or why we measure particular outcomes, so they are asking what they think is a reasonable request, but may ask it in a way that makes it hard for us to deliver data in the format they want. D3 gave us permission to go back and ask, inform, and provide information on the necessity to change the parameters a little bit with funders.” - Waters
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SP OTLIGH T Interfaith Housing Coalition
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n 2011, Interfaith Housing Coalition was facing a quarter-life identity issue. It was a 25-year-old agency that had garnered deserved accolades for providing transitional housing so that working poor families could survive homelessness. However, the families weren’t obtaining the careers and livable wages needed to thrive long-term. That
year, the agency found that only 40 percent of the 100 families it served annually were completing its Financial Empowerment Program. About half of that 40 percent found themselves homeless again six months after receiving assistance from Interfaith. In addition, the average Interfaith client was earning about $9.50 an hour. “Those original findings opened the eyes of our board and our team to the importance of data,” said Kimberly Williams, Chief Executive Officer of Interfaith. “At the same time, CFT was launching the D3 Institute, so it was a perfect fit, because we were wanting to figure out how we could incorporate the use of data to advance our mission on an everyday basis.” Post-D3, Interfaith’s efforts are demonstrating an impact that is more in line with the identity it wants to cultivate. This last fiscal year, 91 percent of its residents graduated from its self-sufficiency program with a job earning an average of nearly $13 per hour; 97 percent of its graduates have maintained employment one year after graduation. Here’s more from Williams about how D3 fueled a new identity for the organization.
Measuring success “As a result of our work in D3, we created eight self-sufficiency milestones to help us measure each family’s progress toward long-term stability. The goal is to help working poor families go from being homeless to self-sufficient in three years, meaning the families are living without the need for federal subsidies or support. For this to happen, families needed to reach the following milestones: employment in the career field of their choice with livable wages; permanent housing; financial education and coaching; debt reduction; a savings safety net to deal with a crisis or an emergency; development of a five-year life and career plan; maintenance of full-time employment; and permanent housing for at least a year
after leaving Interfaith. The milestones show that a family’s ability to take the skills they develop with us will translate into them living stable lives apart from us. We already knew we had to determine what these markers were, but D3 helped us determine how to measure them, how often to measure them, and how they were going to play into the course corrections and changes we had to make to get those numbers where we wanted them to be and become the agency we wanted to be.” 15
One of the families served by Interfaith Housing Coalition that has achieved the agency’s eight milestones of self-sufficiency.
Proof of the work “In D3, we learned that data isn’t something you reserve for reporting to your funders. It is something that should be ingrained in the agency’s strategy and leadership process. It eliminates a lot of the guess work of whether or not something is working and it creates a culture of high performance. It also gives us an advantage in how we convince people that we work with everyday that all the energy and effort they are putting into the program yields long-term results. When you are asking someone to change their life or lifestyle, you need to have proof that it works. Few of us will go to a trainer that is out of shape, because we don’t see them as effective.
“We learned that data isn’t something you reserve for reporting to your fun-
The same is true when it comes to organizations.
ders. It is something that should be in-
When you’re asking somebody to budget or turn
grained in the agency’s strategy and
down a job in a field with low-earning potential,
leadership process.”
being able to say that 91 percent of the people
Kimberly Williams
who follow our program end up employed with
Chief Executive Officer,
an average wage of $13 an hour provides extra
Interfaith Housing Coalition
motivation for them to trust the process.”
Identifying true need “As we looked at how we wanted to grow in terms of our capital campaign, originally the most logical choice would have been to build more apartments to serve more homeless families. But when we looked at the data, we found that it wasn’t the housing component that made people stable. After all, we’d always provided housing, yet a large portion of those we were serving were still struggling after they left us. We found that the most important aspects of the program were the financial coaching, career development and the child care component. We also found that child care was something many other agencies don’t offer, and what it meant to clients to simultaneously elevate the child’s academic performance while also dealing with the parent eased a lot of pressure and stress once parents graduated from our program. We also found that from a financial perspective, we would have tripled our budget to serve 300 families, but now
we’re only having to grow our budget by about 40 percent to support a different version of our model with child care. By partnering with CFT, we had access to information that helped up do the research to learn the type of child care facility we wanted to add. We found that only 8 percent of all child care facilities in Dallas offer child care on nights and weekends even though a quarter of all low-income families work odd hours. So, we knew that would be a huge service they wouldn’t have otherwise. Also, for those that were working but wanted an opportunity to elevate their financial status or career, they were going to need child care while they weren’t at work to take advantage of services to help them advance, and they would need those services in the evening hours when a lot of other agencies are closed. That shaped the model for our clients to be served as they need to be.” 16
SP OTLIGH T VMLC
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MLC’s mission is to help adults and children improve their English literacy and life skills, but its staff members have always
thought far beyond merely helping clients read better. “We’ve always wanted to know if once their literacy and life skills are stronger, what the tangible results are for their families,” said Sarah Papert, Executive Director for VMLC, an acronym for Vickery
Volunteer teacher Linda Robins helps VMLC students improve their English literacy and life skills.
Meadow Learning Center. “Are they able to get a better job? Are they able to help their children with homework, be a better parent or become more involved in the community?” D3 provided an opportunity for the agency to learn how to find answers to such questions by giving the agency tools to measure and capture data so it can better serve its clients. Part of VMLC’s services includes working with the nonprofit community as a whole for referrals to other support services. “We recognize that our students generally need a wide variety of social support services, and instead of us trying to provide all of those services ourselves, we want to connect students to those other services,” Papert said. “To have
this intentional time together during D3 on a regular basis was valuable, because we rely on our nonprofit community networks for our referrals.” Here’s more from Papert.
Building capacity to do more “A big part of D3 was getting us to think about how we can do a better job of collecting data and using it in a meaningful way. Ultimately, that led to us create a new staff position, our student outcomes manager. This person wears two hats. One is the outcome management aspect, where she oversees all of the data, making sure that it’s collected, consistent and accurate, and that we’re able to analyze it to learn what’s going on with our students. The other hat she
wears is more of a case worker. She does a lot of one-on-one and small group meetings with our students. In the past, nobody did that as their sole focus. In the past we traded this responsibility around, so we weren’t able to have the intentional follow up with our students that our student outcomes manager is now able to provide. The timing was good for us to add this position, because as we’ve steadily grown in the number of people we’re serving, and we’ve had to think carefully about the depth of the services we provide. The student outcomes manager has also gotten certified to do health and human service screenings. Previously, we would have to rely on an outside entity to come on site to do the screenings for the day, but we found it hard for the students. It requires a trust relationship between the screener and the student, because of the level of detail in the questions involved in the screenings that couldn’t be built with a 17
person coming in for one day. And now the student outcomes manager can directly follow up with the students as need-
ed. D3 helped us make the case for the position because we were better able to articulate the point that it’s not just that we’re helping people improve their literacy skills, but that we’re equipping them to be able to do the other things they want to accomplish. The end result is this is helping people move out of poverty. In January 2015, VMLC extended its reach to a third site in Dallas through a merger with another non-profit organization. ELM, which stands for English Language Ministry, was merged into VMLC and is now the ELM-East Dallas campus of VMLC. The merger with ELM helped expand our capacity. For ELM the merger was attractive, because they could see how well organized we were in being able to collect data and communicate the outcomes and impact on the students and their families.”
Setting goals “Our new relationship with data has resulted in a greater impact. We’re still very focused on the literacy gains, but
“Our new relationship with data has resulted
we have been able to add additional
in a greater impact. We’re still very focused on
emphasis to the life skills gains of our
the literacy gains, but we have been able to
students. It’s really broadened our per-
add additional emphasis to the life skills gains
spective on the many ways we can help
of our students.
students improve their lives. We have
- Sarah Papert
always assessed the students on their literacy level when they come into the
Executive Director,
program so that we can place them in
VMLC
an appropriate class and then, we assess them again at the end of the school year to see the literacy gains they have made. We have also asked our students about the life skills they have acquired through end-of-year surveys, asking them, for example, if they have gotten a raise or a new job since entering the program, if they were able to attend a parent teacher conference with their child, or become more involved in the community as a result of what they’ve learned. Since D3, we’ve become more intentional about how we talk to the students about life skills and the goals they have for learning English when they enter the program. This can be challenging with English language learners, because they understand they need to learn English, but it is often hard for them to articulate why they want to learn English. Generally students have similar reasons for learning English, so we now have them talk about their goals in a class setting. The idea is that if they’re all working on similar goals, they can support each other in the journey of accomplishing their goals together. And ultimately, we can better fulfill our mission of changing lives through literacy.”
18
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B r y a n ’s H o u s e
C h i l d r e n ’s A d v o c a c y C e n t e r o f C o l l i n C o u n t y Cornerstone Assistance Network Crossroads Community Services Galaxy Counseling Center G rap evin e Rel ief a nd C o m m unit y Exc ha nge ( GR AC E ) International Rescue Committee Irving Cares 19
ASS OF 2013-2014
The Ladder Alliance
T h e R i c h a r d s o n A d u l t L i t e ra c y C e n t e r S a f e H a v e n o f Ta r r a n t C o u n t y Sharing Life Community Outreach Vo g e l A l c o v e Vo l u n t e e r s o f A m e r i c a Te x a s Wilkinson Center YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas 20
THOUGHTS FROM THE CLASS OF 2013-2014 “Early on the data we used for strategic planning was financial data, but now we are using programmatic and client data to make better decisions on our strategic direction. We are looking at demographics, financial, outcomes, etc. and working with the Board of Directors on using that data to better make decisions for the organization. We are using this data to better understand how to achieve our goals.”- David Thomas, Former Executive Director
“D3 was validation for our data collection/usage, and heightened our awareness and ability to serve our clients more holistically. The reason we were so interested in being part of D3 was improving our services to the working poor. We focus on child abuse, not necessarily on working poor, but we wanted to see how to serve the clients that would be classified as working poor. My staff’s collaborative efforts were enormous for the agency. The project heightened our collaborations that will help us serve our clients better.” - Lynne McLean, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director
“D3 was a GREAT opportunity! Our staff and organization is better for participating. Not only has our organization benefited, but we will take what was learned and share it with those agencies that we serve so that they may benefit as well. Thanks D3! You have helped us make our communities better places to live!" - Mike Doyle, Chief Executive Officer
“It (D3) really helped me to discipline my thoughts. It gave me a systematic way of thinking. I was provided a road map.” - Lynette Payne, Executive Director
21
“This is a huge endeavor and we know it, but because of the great support structure we really value going through the process. Now that we know more about what we can do with data to analyze the program effectiveness, we would hope to validate our current structure or we would improve it. We know we need to stay within our mission. We realize that we are collecting the right data, using it correctly and now we are firm in standing in our commitment to mission.” - Teddie Story, Executive Director
“D3 was extremely beneficial for us to network with other non-profits located in Ft. Worth and Dallas serving similar clientele. What a wonderful opportunity to discuss ideas with other non-profit professionals.” - Sharon Cox, Executive Director
“D3 is going to work as an accelerant for VOA when it comes to data driving decisions within the organization. We are moving towards a culture of allowing data to drive decisions.” Moving from anecdotal to measured.” - Melody Timinsky, Executive Director
"The YMCA was able to make a significant investment in staff that would heighten our ability to collect, analyze and implement the results of the data we are collecting. D3 allowed us to evaluate our staffing structure and invest wisely in the staffing requirements for the organization." - Gordon Echtenkamp, President and Chief Executive Officer
22
SP OTLIGH T Richardson Adult Literacy Center
T
he Richardson Adult Literacy Center (RALC) ’s D3 experience offers proof of the ancient Greek quote, “from a small seed, a mighty trunk may
grow.” When the agency that provides English as a Second Language instruction for adults was selected to participate in D3, it had a staff of two, an annual budget of $40,000, and an active student count of about 75 people. “What I tried to portray to [D3 organizers] was that yes, we are small, but we can use what we’re going to learn to have an impact now, because we don’t have the bureaucracy or the size of a large established nonprofit Students attend classes at the Richardson Adult Learning Center, which offers English instruction for adults in its community.
to work through how we get staff on board, change processes and all of those things,” said Katie Patterson, Ex-
ecutive Director for RALC. “We can implement like a small sports car, with quick turns and fast acceleration.” And
quickly accelerate the agency did. Its budget is now $180,000 and growing, the staff size has increased to four, and it assists more than 600 people a year. Here’s more from Patterson.
Learning with big leaguers “I remember being at the first D3 gathering and being in a room with nonprofits such as the YMCA of Dallas, Wilkinson Center and International Rescue Committee — organizations that I had heard of and knew were well-established. Here we were with them, side by side. It was me and a part-time program coordinator. At the time, that was our entire staff. We were introducing ourselves and our organization to the others, and it hit me how small we were. But I was optimis-
tic and felt like we could definitely do more than anyone expected of us.”
The poetry of logic “In 2012, I attended a United Way seminar about a new three-year grant cycle and quickly realized we were not ready to apply for United Way funding at that time. Still, I wanted to gather the information, because it was my goal that the next time the application window opened, we would be ready. Part of what was talked about at the United Way seminar was logic modeling. The presenters spoke about them as if everyone in the room knew what a logic model was, but that was a completely foreign concept to me. So, when we focused on logic models in D3, that was an a-ha moment. 23
We got a chance to actually sit down, create our logic models and talk to each other about the elements of each one.
RALC used the time to create a logic model for our STAR Program, English as a Second Language for Adults. Fast forward to 2015, we recently submitted our United Way grant application and part of it included the logic model we created in D3. Since we’d already gone through the process of creating it, I knew I could be confident in what we had developed. It was so exciting to click that ‘submit’ button on the application, because it was three years in the works.”
A change in process “In the past, we’d select a curriculum for our classes, train teachers to use it and move forward, but we never really knew if a curriculum was working because we didn’t measure it. Students would drop out of class and while we wished
we could retain them, we weren’t proactive about understanding why they’d left. After D3, we developed a dropout process that includes reviewing the monthly attendance records and looking for poor or declining attendance. We use
“I remember being at the first D3 …. It was me
this data to have a bilingual volunteer
and a part-time program coordinator. At the
call the students and find out why they
time, that was our entire staff. We were intro-
aren’t attending. Once we started this
ducing ourselves and our organization to the
process, we were able to uncover some
others, and it hit me how small we were. But I
of the challenges we already suspected,
was optimistic and felt like we could definitely
such as job schedule changes, transpor-
do more than anyone expected of us.”
tation issues and child care issues, which we can’t control. But we also
- Katie Patterson
learned about other factors, such as
Executive Director,
teachers moving too fast through the
Richardson Adult Literacy Center
instruction and leaving some students without a clear understanding of the concepts. We also found that some
teachers weren’t engaging the students. With this data, we are able to work with the teachers and review their techniques and pacing, making improvements for both the students and the teachers. Now, we’re able to use data to inform and improve what we are doing.”
What a difference a story makes “Prior to D3, we hadn’t shared our story well. In 2015, we developed an annual report that gave information about the needs our programs address and shared outcome related information. Each area had a data-driven highlight. We See Richardson Adult Learning Center, page 44 24
SP OTLIGH T SafeHaven
H
istorically, the key focus in the fight against domestic violence was to keep the client safe. “For decades, it was, we’re just trying to save a life and that was good enough, and that was the end of the story,” said Kathryn Jacob, Chief Executive Officer and President for SafeHaven of Tarrant County, a non-profit agency
that provides comprehensive services to domestic violence victims. Couple that with SafeHaven’s pre-D3 approach of making decisions based on what funders required and you have a big organization that was not focused on the larger impact it could have on the domestic violence victim’s life. “We’d never really thought critically about what we ultimately wanted to see happen from the effort we were putting into helping people,” said Stephanie Storey, Chief Programs Officer for SafeHaven. “D3 challenged us to think beyond the generic outcomes that funders required and helped us determine that for ourselves.” Here’s more from Storey about the impact that D3 had on the agency.
Breaking the cycle “At SafeHaven, our business is saving lives and this is where our primary focus has been for years. We would continually say, if she* comes to the shelter, then she won’t die. And there is truth to that, because we are a life line, but there are so many other things to consider… One of those things is the tie between domestic violence and poverty, an issue we addressed in D3. When I started working with domestic violence survivors in the shelter years ago, I mostly encountered individuals and families who became homeless for the first time because of abuse. Today our agency sees an increasing number of clients who have experienced multiple incidents of victimization from different abusive partners. We’re seeing so many single moms who are in poverty and not stably housed cycling back through the shelter. Their lack of stable housing and risk of poverty was keeping them in a cycle of victimization. These are things that skew some of the traditional statistics of domestic violence. ” - Storey
Creating an evaluation process “We have not historically done a great job of evaluating progress with our clients. We have used a couple of different tools to try and document a client’s progress while in services, but none have been as effective or useful as we would like. As we went through D3, we decided we needed a tool that would comprehensively demonstrate the program’s impact. We were introduced to the self-sufficiency matrix model and used it to customize a model based on the needs of our clients and what they told us they need to demonstrate progress. We decided that we wanted something where a client made the determination where her progress was instead of us deciding that for her. So, with others in D3 and our data coach, we developed a matrix specifically for SafeHaven. Now we are working on a questionnaire that correlates with the matrix, which will allow a client to determine her progress in specific areas. For example, one of the questions 25
would be, ‘I feel like I have enough money to pay my bills every month,’ because one of the things we were really seeing
more than anything in terms of our clients’ inability to stay free of violence in relationships is that they don’t have enough income to provide for their families or they have small kids and can’t afford daycare. So, one of the things we need to make sure we are focusing on is creating additional partnerships with community agencies that are helping and empowering women to increase their self-sufficiency.” – Storey
Solving for stability “We also increased our length of stay
“Throughout the D3 process, I would come
in our shelter. Historically, we’ve been
back to SafeHaven and talk with others on the
this triage place where people could stay for no more than 30 days. What we were seeing is that we were
staff here and they were super into it. … that this information really resonated with staff
granting extension after extension. So,
had a huge impact. We all started to think
we decided that essentially we need to
differently about our work.”
change our service delivery model to
- Stephanie Storey
meet the needs of women who are
Chief Programs Officer,
coming to us, because they needed a
SafeHaven
stabilization period. The tie between the evaluation tool and the length of stay is that we will be better able to measure a client’s progress through the full continuum of services. Clients might move from the shelter to our housing program, and once in our housing program, they might stay with us for up to two years. Potentially, we will see the clients’ progress for two to three years of time.” – Storey
Sharing the vision “Throughout the D3 process, I would come back to SafeHaven and talk with others on the staff here and they were super into it. They really bought in to what we gained. In many instances, they have been the ones to continue to motivate me. ‘Remember, we were going to do this,’ or ‘Remember, we need to roll out our new evaluation tool that we developed.’ That’s a lot different than I would have expected – that this information really resonated with staff had a huge impact. We all started to think differently about our work. Even to this day, the team reminds me to stay on track and make sure we’re focused on outcomes and not just outputs.” - Storey
*Note: SafeHaven’s largest clientele is made up of women and children. The use of the terms “women” or “she” does not imply that men are not victims of domestic violence, but is an expression of the experiences of those who quoted for this section of the publication. 26
SP OTLIGH T Sharing Life Community Outreach
T
eresa Jackson is one of the most humble people you’ll ever meet. So when she summarizes the difference D3 has made in the existence of Sharing Life Community Outreach, forgive her for sounding conceited. “I’ll just tell you like I tell everybody else,” said Jackson, who paused and glanced downward before making the next
statement. “We’re a big deal these days.” Jackson, who founded the agency in 1999 and now serves as Chief Executive Officer, said this with a much larger air of modest awe than hubris. Truth be told, she can’t believe how far the organization that offers food, clothing and resources for other life essentials has come since the days when she was handing out cans of tuna from the trunk of her car. “Nobody is more surprised by this than I am. I thought we would do to the best of our ability and be important to the people who came here,” Jackson said. “I had no idea that we would become such a force in the nonprofit community and it’s because of what D3 did for us. It was the perfect launching pad for us to take off and realize some of the things that I had only dreamed of for us or, better yet, didn’t even know to dream about.” Here’s more from Jackson.
Providence “I’ve always known that we were going to do good things, important things and meet needs. I never dreamed we would be this large and be this innovative. I knew we were not just going to be a food pantry and a clothes closet and offer a little program here and there until we ran out of money. We were going to do some sustainable stuff. I didn’t know how, but I knew we were going to do it and I knew I needed to learn how. It was providential that in the same time that I was working on my own leadership development an opportunity to do organizational development was offered through D3. In fact, my title changed from executive director to CEO, because part of the learning process was an understanding that my role was going to change and that I would not be interviewing clients anymore and taking groceries to the car. I love doing those things and it’s a passion for me, but for the organization to be a sustainable growth-oriented organization, I couldn't do those things anymore.”
Growing pains “When we started in D3, I thought we were in over our heads. I thought ‘we’re not grown up enough for this, we are just schlepping food and clothes to people in need.’ I just couldn’t see how we would be able to take on the higher level thought process that required a paradigm shift of moving into a whole different atmosphere of doing business. It’s a set of skills that I didn’t think we had the infrastructure to support. The other reason is because I felt that the number one thing that we do here, which is providing food for the food insecure, is a difficult task to provide outcomes for, but I trusted CFT for inviting us to participate in D3. I knew that they could see things in us that I couldn’t yet see. What I 27
learned in D3 made me feel more confident to call us what we were – impactful, effective and successful. As the found-
er, there was a point when I didn't want to say Sharing Life is really successful, because that felt like I was bragging. But I learned through D3 how to articulate that and to talk about the work that we’re doing as an honest assessment of where we really were. We learned how to use proxy data and how to better accumulate our own demographic data. We learned how to properly present data in a written form that was attractive to stakeholders. D3 gave us the tools and confidence to market those things in a package and present them to the world. That confidence has also allowed me as CEO to engage in relationships that I may not have considered before.”
“(D3) was the perfect launching pad for us to
Making connections “There had been talk for the last two years that the North Texas Food Bank
take off and realize some of the things that I had only dreamed of for us or, better yet, didn’t even know to dream about.”
was going to be restructuring its distri-
- Teresa Jackson
bution system using work done by an-
Chief Executive Officer,
other agency. It was called a hub-and-
Sharing Life Community Outreach
spoke model that used a network of partner agencies as spokes to redistribute food from the hub, which is the North Texas Food Bank. As North Texas Food Bank was building the plan, their representatives asked if we were interested in becoming a hub. My initial answer was no, because I didn’t think we were ready for such a partnership. It was exciting and intriguing, but it was a huge endeavor that I thought was too big for our small staff to take on. As we were rocking along through D3, we were sitting in a meeting one day and I had an ‘aha”’ moment about the North Texas Food Bank partnership. I thought, ‘Yes, we can do this.’ I had to remember that Sharing Life went from zero when I started it several years ago to the well-respected, effective agency that it is today. So, why can’t we continue to grow by being a hub in the food bank’s system? As a result of the change in thinking and confidence that I gained through D3, we became one of the first hubs in the North Texas Food Bank’s expanded network. Leaders often think that they have to have the answer to every problem and the full amount of knowledge in their own brain to be effective, but I learned through D3 that it’s ok to not know everything. The best leaders are the ones that know when to call in people with expertise and allow them to help in areas where the leaders have no knowledge.”
New lenses “Successful nonprofits do not recognize that they are not just out there handing out green beans and tuna fish. Yes, that is fulfilling an important need for people who don't have those items, but we are also doing things that in the forprofit business world are well-recognized and easily duplicated. Nonprofits often don't look at their organization from See Sharing Life Community Outreach, page 44 28
SPOTLIGH T Wilkinson Center
F
or many agencies that participated in D3, the experience provided outstanding professional and leadership development among agency
employees. One agency that best reflects this change is the Wilkinson Center – an agency that provides pathways to self-sufficiency to the working poor in East and
Graduates of one of the Wilkinson Center’s programs. The agency provides programs to empower clients to be self-sufficient.
Southeast Dallas. The agency works to deliver programs as informed by evaluation results based on their clients’
progression through current programming, program impact based on data analysis of the communities they serve and survey results from staff and volunteers delivering the programs. In addition to seeing a shift in the program delivery and focus, Program Director Rachael Behre experienced a change in her appreciation of data. “I hated data,” Behre admitted. “But it’s because I wasn’t thinking of it as a path for improvement. I was focused on the numbers and I didn’t think about studying it to see how we could use it to make a change.” After D3, Behre became the data go-to person at the agency, said Anne Reeder, Executive Director of Wilkinson Center. “She is the one who really understands our data-
base systems and is encouraging everyone to see data differently,” Reeder said. Here’s more from Reeder and Behre about their experience and how they now see data differently.
Data that matters “D3 opened our eyes to a new way of looking at the information we’ve gotten. It’s helped everybody across the nonprofit community to not look at data from the viewpoint of ‘let's fill in the boxes’ to ‘what boxes should there be?’ Now, we’re asking ourselves what are we trying to accomplish and what are the metrics that will really matter? Are we just doing this for the sake of filling stuff in? Are we really doing it to move our programs forward? It was just a whole differ-
ent way of looking at data and metrics that really moved us forward to be able to tell our story in a way that's more effective and gave us a more professional look at our programs by asking if we have success we can measure.” - Reeder
“Now we look at data everywhere. We also take that data and explain it to staff so they can know how to use it to better their jobs. We even have a couple of employees now that go into our database and they are really thinking through the information they are pulling and its purpose. Before, they would just give me numbers because I asked for them. So, I think we've done a good job getting employees to buy-in as well.” - Berhe
29
Designed to measure “We’ve used much of what we learned to look at the way we design our classes and how we measure success. For example, we are at four employer sites and one of them is struggling. There is a person who is advocating for us to be there. We decided to take a look what the data tells us. We found that student attendance is low, and that this site doesn’t get as much employer support as the others, and there is not as much of an incentive for those employees to attend class. We then compared it to the data from the other employer sites and looked at the resources we are putting into each one, which really helped us determine which sites we need to keep and how we determine to open others.
We get asked frequently to come to
“I hated data (before D3), but it’s because I
employer location to teach a class.
wasn’t thinking of it as a path for improve-
Now our focus is on, since we’re paying
ment.”
someone to teach this class, how many
- Rachael Behre
students are we going to get out of it
Program Director,
and how will the class really work for
Wilkinson Center
employees. Before, we weren’t that strategic.” - Behre
Asking the right questions “One of things we also got out of D3 was the opportunity to go back and re-evaluate what we are doing to really understand what the students want. Previously, we did student evaluations, but it was more focused on how they felt about instructor and the classroom experience. As an example, we are trying to determine how to get our adult education students to make use of our food pantry. We were sitting around talking one day and someone said the issue is that we’re not open during the times they need us. And we thought it about and asked ourselves, ‘who is at home Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon?’ If we are trying to reach a new population, let’s figure how to do that-what hours make sense for the adult learner population?
We also started asking clients about food insecurity. It asks such questions as in the last week, ‘did you have enough food to eat or did your children eat? Have you skipped in a meal in the last month because you didn’t have food. Were you able to buy the things that you really wanted?’ Asking those questions will give us a new set of data and help us figure out what people needs when it comes to food. We just assumed they need food and we push this food pantry, and we are assuming that will lead to more referral, but then we don’t get the number of referrals to the food pantry that we expect. This will give us an idea of the need and help us better figure out how to get food to students.” - Behre
30
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Arlington Life Shelter
C e n t e r f o r Tr a n s f o r m i n g L i v e s ( f o r m e r l y Y W C A o f F o r t Wo r t h & Ta r r a n t C o u n t y ) Community Enrichment Center Community Lifeline Dallas Leadership Foundation Fa m i l y P a t h f i n d e r s o f Ta r r a n t C o u n t y Habitat for Humanity of Greater Garland 31
ASS OF 2014-2015
Housing Crisis Center
Interfaith Ministries of Denton LaunchAbility Services of Hope Tr a n s f o r m a n c e ( f o r m e r l y C o n s u m e r C r e d i t C o u n s e l i n g S e r v i c e o f Greater Dallas) Vo i c e o f H o p e Wisdom's Hope 32
THOUGHTS FROM THE CLASS OF 2014-2015 “We are a big ship trying to make a change, but we are looking forward to the change. Logic models and theory of change are coming into play more and more in several areas of our organization especially as we move into more integrated service delivery. Because of D3 we are better prepared.” - Randy Clinton, President and Chief Executive Officer
“The results of a modified exit interview led to a more integrated service delivery for our clients, all because we looked at our client assessment and realized we needed to focus on 90-days worth of client follow-up. The results on our follow-up led us to identify what our clients truly needed and not an assumption on our part of their needs. That’s a move to true impact.” - Christine Hockin-Boyd, Former Executive Director
“One big area of progress we made as a result of D3 was the implementation of an information dashboard for our board. We identified metrics and a way to graphically present the information. It helped us ask better questions of our board regarding where we are, where we want to go and how we are progressing in those areas.” - Carol Klocek, Executive Director Note: Center for Transforming Lives is formerly YWCA of Fort Worth and Tarrant County
“D3 helped us develop our strategic plan. We are incorporating financial planning into our programming. We are shifting our paradigm as we approach financial programming as a direct result of attending a CFT supported conference. Financial planning will now be incorporated into schools, prisons and neighborhoods. Our youth programming will have more applicable trainings (banking, student loans, under banking, purchasing cars, payday loans, check cashing stores, importance of having good financial, practices around managing bank accounts). This has made huge impact.” - Wil McCall, Executive Director 33
“We began the D3 Institute eager to learn how to use our data to better tell our story. Through the Institute, we learned how to use our data to show the impact of programs and make decisions on the best use of resources to fulfill our mission. Having the appropriate information to support our decisions has improved service delivery and not only strengthened our connection to volunteers, staff, board members, funders and those we serve, but has also made us better community partners.” - Kathryn Arnold, Executive Director
“What we learned about storytelling in D3 was most impactful, because it changed our perspective on what we wanted our story to be. We looked at it anecdotally, but through D3, we’ve transitioned to being more data informed, which we found to be a powerful tool. Our story has changed to focus on family and the impact of a new home on their life long goals.” - Marty Rogers, Former Executive Director
"The discussion on culture was extremely important and impactful. We stopped one aspect of our programming to focus on another. It was something we needed to do and it has been hard. Our culture change discussion made us really aware of our need to overcommunicate and make sure we are aligned with all staff. We want to be entrepreneurial…not just thinking about being entrepreneurial." - Kathryn Parsons, Chief Executive Officer
“As an organization, we are working to fully integrate data into full agency operations moving out of programs and development only to operations, purchasing, and inventory systems. D3 has helped us to communicate interdepartmentally on what's the good data and what’s the data that is not relevant… .” - Edward L. Franklin, Executive Director
34
SP OTLIGH T Arlington Life Shelter
A
rlington Life Shelter used D3 as a tool to prepare for the future. The agency had reached its 25th year of providing shelter and support
for the homeless, and determined it was time to think about a strategic plan for the next 25 years. “We were having some growing pains, because client and volunteer demographics were changing,” said Janel Holt, Assistant Executive Director for Operations. “We felt that we were on the brink of a brand new day.” In addition,
Volunteers pack lunches so that Arlington Life Shelter clients have meals for school and work days.
the agency had moved away from receiving federal
funding that once dictated the data it collected and the programs it offered clients, which gave it a new sense of freedom. “As we looked to the future and the different kinds of clients coming through the door, we were going to have to make some major decisions,” Holt said. Here’s more from Holt.
Cutting the cycle “We did a pilot project in D3 with another agency in the area of financial literacy, and it helped us turn a corner. For the longest time, our program and its classes were focused on self-sufficiency. Our goal is for people to leave here being self-sufficient or having made major steps toward self-sufficiency. As a result, a lot of our efforts have gone into the front end and focused on what kind of job a client has, how much money they earn, or what benefits they are getting. When we started talking to people and surveying our current clients to find out what they really wanted, we found that while we were covering things such as what a budget is and talking to clients about living under their means, it wasn’t as effective as we’d hoped for. We changed the program and brought in a group of volunteers from a partner organiza-
tion that we met in D3 who were trained to deal with the financial concerns of people in the demographic we serve. Suddenly, we could hardly keep clients from going to the class. That opened our eyes to see that, yes, it’s important that they find work, and yes, it’s important that they have a decent paying job with benefits, but we will have more impact and cut the cycle by addressing budgeting and spending through the lens of what our clients know and live.”
Seeing new opportunities “Additionally, attending the Corporation For Enterprise Development (CFED) conference as part of our D3 experience really flipped on a lot of lights for us. For example, we weren’t thinking about the impact of high-interest payday loans 35
on our clients. We’d gotten anecdotal information about it, but we’d never collected the information in an organized
way to really see how big of a problem it might be for our folks. After D3, we surveyed our clients, because several studies state that 30 percent of the people served by social service agencies have experience with payday loans. We learned that, sure enough, 30 percent of our clients fit that description. That has given us something to be able to use in conversations with clients. It’s also opened our eyes to other partnerships with other agencies.”
Fail hard, fail fast “The Lean Start Up session of D3 was the encouragement we needed to help our agency move from analysis paralysis to action. The information we received in D3 about failing hard and failing fast was good for us. Before, we had a ten-
dency to want to sit on an idea. Intellectually, we would think the ideas were good,
“What we were expecting from D3 was an op-
but we would feel that we had to get eve-
portunity to come together as people in the
ry detail figured out and each one had to be just right. The encouragement to get
non-profit world, get a bit of a glimpse into
something going instead of doing nothing
some best practices, have a good lunch, and
at all gave us the courage to take ideas
then do it again the next month. What we got
and say, ‘well, let’s start with this and see
was so much more. It gave us a chance to meet
if this works out.’ For example, one of the
and share with so many different folks and get
things we had talked about was a way for clients who work odd shifts or work over-
an idea of not just what’s working best in Ar-
night to access to services during the day.
lington or Tarrant County, but what’s working
We had kicked around an idea about of-
in other places.”
fering extended hours, but we’d never ac-
- Janel Holt
tually tried it. After D3, we piloted a day
Assistant Executive Director
of service where we offered a range of
for Operations,
different services. One company inter-
Arlington Life Shelter
viewed for full-time jobs, the VA hospital was on site to see if any of veterans need-
ed assistance. Mission Arlington was here, along with a resource on navigating transportation in Arlington. The Arlington Police came to talk about addressing warrants and tickets and how to keep your car legal in Texas. We had no idea how many clients would come and the actual turnout was low, but we tried and now we’re using the data from the event to make an informed decision about how to move forward. In the past, it would have been really easy for us to say you know what, let’s hire three more people and we will see how it goes. The pilot gave us insight and information on if and how to continue, saving us money and effort in the long run, letting us fail fast and move on.”
36
SP OTLIGH T Housing Crisis Center
T
he staff members of the Housing Crisis Center entered D3 as individuals, but came out as a team with a new vision and renewed enthusiasm for the work they do to
prevent homelessness and stabilize those at risk of homelessness. “D3 pushed us to start the teaming process and not just let it go,” said Anthony Collins, director of programs for the agency.
A member of the staff at Housing Crisis Center counsels a client.
“I’d always envisioned the power we would have if we stopped working in silos and really considered the work of everyone in the room. D3 gave us a sense of urgency to move to that model.” Along the way, the program also taught the team how to dream and go deep with numbers. Here’s more from Collins’ colleagues: Sherri Ansley, executive director and program managers Gina Norman and Yolanda Williams.
Dream work “I started in March 2015. The staff here had already worked on logic models for one program that we have. When I arrived at the agency in March, part of what they were working through was the idea that if HUD didn’t fund it, we don’t do it. So, starting with this program, I asked what should it look like instead of thinking about what it does look like.” Ansley
“I was never asked that question before. We were so used to working within the limitation of what we were able to do with HUD, so it was a really great opportunity to really start to learn how to dream. It allowed us to think about how we would want a program to work if we didn’t have to consider funding.” - Norman
“Before D3, we were doing financial coaching, but we weren’t calling ourselves coaches. In our minds, we were case
managers who directed how things should go. Now, we had to step back and put on a whole new hat. We’re not case managing anymore, we’re coaching because now we know that people are receptive to coaching instead of wagging your finger at them and telling them what to do. That was a big change for me, because I’m an old school case manager, but I embraced it and I’m glad I went through the process of change. The experience really grew me as a professional.” - Norman
37
“Another piece that came out of D3 was the storytelling. We have awesome stories, but everybody else was telling it for
us. Other agencies that we partner with were telling our clients’ stories. Now, we’ve done a much better job of thinking through what we’re doing and seeing if it’s a story to be told.” - Ansley
Going deeper “I came out of D3 understanding that when it comes to data, you have to peel the layer back and go deeper. We were just surface collecting data, but there were so many more levels of data that we could have collected and we didn’t even know to collect it. Now, we’re able to ask better questions when collecting the data.” - Norman
“D3 has helped me look at the whole picture instead of just looking at it in sections. I really open up my work and look at the outcomes, too. For example, for HUD, they would require a person coming into our program to have employment. So, we made sure the person got employed, but they were still under-employed. Now, we’re able to say what other services do we need to put in place so they can get better employment. Now we ask deeper questions,
“Another piece that came out of D3 was the
because when we are crafting the ques-
storytelling piece. We have awesome stories,
tions, we take into consideration the
but everybody else was telling it for us. Other
outcomes, too.” - Norman
agencies that we partner with were telling our
“D3 taught me to have a better under-
clients’ stories. Now, we’ve done a much better
standing of why we do what we do. It
job of thinking through what we’re doing and
also taught me how we can better help
seeing if it’s a story to be told.”
our participants with their needs and not just the needs we see that they
Sherri Ansley
need.” - Williams
Executive Director,
Housing Crisis Center
38
SP OTLIGH T Interfaith Ministries of Denton
C
ondell Garden described her agency’s D3 experience in six simple words. “Data helps us tell our story,” said Garden, Executive Director for Interfaith Ministries of Denton, an agency that provides emergency assistance to people and families in northern Denton County, and one that now uses data to tell a consistent story that
helps people understand the agency’s purpose. “Our cause isn’t one that has high visibility nor is it romantic, because it’s not always easy to see the people who are in pain. So, it’s important for us to develop ways to make it real to the community.” The result of the agency’s efforts to better tell its story: increased capacity among its staff, board members and the Denton community as a whole. The agency has moved from an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mode to one that is thoughtful and interested in making deep impact. Here’s more from Garden about the agency’s D3 experience.
Being about the business “We learned a lot about the culture of our agency. We like to think that we’re a creative, innovative agency that functions like a business all the time, but we learned in D3 that we lean more toward having a close-knit, clan type of environment that functions more like a family. Now, we have gradually worked on being more of the former. We’re approaching ideas and programs with more of a business mind than we did before. “
Making plans “Before D3, I don’t think we ever sat down when we did a grant and worked through a logic model. We knew what we thought our outcomes should be, but we didn’t have any way to measure them. Now, as we’re doing grants, our thinking is, ‘this sounds really good, but how are we going to
show the result?’ We don’t want the results just to be we helped this many people. Now, we ask ourselves what is it we’re actually trying to do and what impact do we want to show. This helps us let funders know that we’re serious and we want to see results. It also reminds us that no matter how well you construct a program, there will be things you don’t foresee. The logic model is just that – a model – and results may not turn out as you expect. But that’s still valuable, because you can track the effort and say ‘here’s what 39
Backpacks line the floor at Interfaith Ministries of Denton’s annual back-to-school fair. The agency provides clothing, shoes, a backpack, school supplies and a new book to 1,500 children each year.
we thought was going to happen, here’s
what really happened, and here’s what we
“We learned a lot about the culture of our
think we could do better.’ For example, we
agency. We like to think that we’re a crea-
are looking at opening a thrift store to help
tive, innovative agency that functions like a
with fund raising, because we know that
business all the time, but we learned in D3
the initial start-up cost is relatively low. We’re looking at whether or not our county
that we lean more toward having a close-
or city may be too saturated with thrift
knit, clan type of environment that functions
stores already and what we need to do to
more like a family. Now, we have gradually
make it different than thrift stores that are
worked on being more of the former. We’re
already out there. We are doing more re-
approaching ideas and programs with more
search beforehand to look at best practices of other places and other agencies that
of a business mind than we did before.”
have thrift stores. Prior to D3, I doubt that
- Condell Garden
we would have done this much planning for
Executive Director,
an idea. We’re trying to determine where
Interfaith Ministries of Denton
would be the best location and what would get the most traffic and what would attract the kind of donations we want to get. We’re planning to develop a model and a business plan if we move forward. In the past, we started a car donation program and jumped into it. We got a dealership license and found someone to auction vehicles for us and just kind of did it, but there were lots of bumps along the way. D3 helped us learn about doing the planning, including thinking through the barriers as well as the needs of our clients. We’re implementing that with the thrift store idea.”
Getting the message right “Learning to get our message out was a huge lesson in D3 for us. It helped us crystalize our view of ourselves. It also helped us to look deeper at what we do. Now, with our annual back-to-school fair, where we provide clothing, supplies, shoes and backpacks for 1,500 low-income children, we make sure our corporate partners for the event understand the fiscal impact the fair has on the community as well as the impact it has on people’s lives long-term. Before, our message was, ‘Help a child go back to school.’ Now, we talk about how the event brings people out to shop for 1,500 children in local stores, so it puts dollars back into the community. We also highlight students who have been impacted by the fair in the past, such as the women who, with her six siblings, received help through the back-to-school fair when she was in middle school. She went on to volunteer with us for eight years and then she was hired to work here part-time while she was in college. She now works for a Fortune 500 accounting firm in Dallas. That’s the kind of impact people need to know about to see the importance of our work.” 40
SP OTLIGH T Services of Hope
A
shrink wrapped case of water resting on a small, metal weighing scale is more than it appears to be in Services of Hope’s food pantry. Volunteers and staff members
at the agency, which serves elementary school students and their families, weigh just about every item the organization takes into the pantry. “We track everything that moves, because now we’re interested in knowing the value of the change we are making in people’s lives,” said Daniel Prescott, president and chief executive
Dr. Vernon Robinson, an instructor in Services of Hope’s afterschool program poses with students.
officer for Services of Hope. “It’s not about how much food we’re bringing in, but about knowing what people need.” The key word Prescott uses is “now,” as in post-D3. Before participating in D3, the agency was more about numbers and less about impact, Prescott said. Here’s more from Prescott.
Numbers vs. impact “Before, it was all about numbers. It was all about bodies. It was about outputs. For example, these boxes [in the food pantry work area] weigh 21 pounds. Every box weighs the same and has the same thing in it for a family of four to survive for a week. We used to only care about that. In the past, we would tell you what we thought you needed. Now, we study what people need, and the clients tell us what they need by what we track. When we were in the D3 classes, we learned that if we wanted to make real change, we had to listen to our constituents.
What D3 drove through my head is that it’s not about the numbers. I could tell you that we saw 1,000 people last month alone, but we never took anybody off the food stamp program. We never gave anybody a job. I thought it was all about us being the bigger guy, but we noticed that funders were changing how they funded and viewed nonprofits. Fun-
ders were still giving us money, but they weren’t giving us the $100,000. Instead, they were giving us $10,000. D3 helped me see that funding has become more about the relationship between us and the impact we were making. Funders want to know if you are making an impact and changing lives. So, we started to look at that and we started changing. As we changed, we realized that we’re ineffective if we’re not providing the services people need, and we can’t know that unless we have data to demonstrate the change.”
41
A new way of thinking “I grew up in a nonprofit world that said, ‘I’m here to save you, and here’s what I’ve got to give you to save you.’ We don’t believe in that world anymore. With that type of thinking, we took away client’s self-dignity and self-respect. When I take that away from you, I cripple you and you will always be dependent upon me. Making decisions with data and systems gives clients their self-respect and moves them to sustainable self-sufficiency.
The shift in my thinking started to happen when our board asked a question that I couldn’t answer and that was, ‘Why are your numbers going up every month and every year?’ We have gone from serving 300 kids in 2004 to serving 3,000plus kids a year through our program in partnership with the Dallas County Juvenile Department. The fact that we were
seeing more kids meant we were offering intervention without a thought toward prevention. We were in the headcount business, but that’s not what we were created for. We were created to be transformational. Our theme is ‘Preparing today’s youth for tomorrow’ challenges,’ but all we were doing was warehousing kids and counting them. We started to
“What D3 drove through my head is that it’s
relook at ourselves.”
not about the numbers. … I thought it was all about us being the bigger guy, but we no-
The look of change
ticed that funders were changing how they
“We recently received a grant from a
funded and viewed nonprofits. ... D3 helped
funding organization in Virginia Beach.
me see that funding has become more about
The organization’s president read our application and came for an unscheduled visit. While he was here, he told me that
the relationship between us and the impact we were making.”
he couldn’t believe what he was reading
- Daniel Prescott
and wanted to see it for himself. He
President and Chief Executive Officer,
asked, ‘You can do all of this and you can
Services of Hope
back up every number that you have?’ and I said, ‘Yes, because I went to this program that says if you can’t back up a number you better get out of the business.’ Now, when we ask for money, we can use our numbers to show how we are investing in human capital. I can now translate what we do into the impact that it makes. What we look at now, are the things we need to do to become a better service support organization. We have transformed from an organization that thought largeness and numbers were king, to being an organization that is all about measuring our collective impact and results.”
42
GUIDING THE WAY FACULTY AND SUPPORT SERVICES PROJECT COORDINATION BY CLARKSON DAVIS
PROJECT SUPPORT BY CNM CONNECT
PRIMARY FACILITATORS/ COACHES (IN ALPHA ORDER)
KIM AARON NORTHWEST ARKANSAS UNITED WAY (FORMERLY NORTH TEXAS FOOD BANK) RICHARD AMORY NORTH TEXAS FOOD BANK SUZANNE SMITH SOCIAL IMPACT ARCHITECTS
COACHES (IN ALPHA ORDER) LAUREN BLITZER DALLAS WOMEN’S FOUNDATION
FROSWA BOOKER-DREW (FORMERLY WORLD VISION) DR. YOLANDA COLUMBUS NORTHLAKE COMMUNITY COLLEGE DR. CONSTANCE LACY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS SUE MATKIN UNITED WAY OF TARRANT COUNTY CHRIS PEARSON CLARKSON DAVIS TOM PURKEY CLARKSON DAVIS
KATIE SIRAKOS CLARKSON DAVIS BRANDI TANAKA SOCIAL IMPACT ARCHITECTS SHERRYE WILLIS ALLIANCE FOR GREATER WORKS
43
Words from Wende Burton, from page 6
see where the future leads as they continue the journeys started in D3. D3 was a group effort, and I’m sincerely grateful for everyone who participated in its creation. Deepest gratitude goes to CFT’s trustees and leadership who let us to try this “experiment.” I am thankful to the masterful D3 facilitators and coaches who walked beside us, and to CNM Connect for all the behind-the-scenes help. And I give thanks and love to Clarkson Davis for its partnership in the design of D3, and to project managers, Errika Flood-Moultrie and Nissy New, who kept all the trains running on time. Finally, I am most grateful to all of the agencies who participated, dug in, and embraced the experience. Because of you and your hard work, North Texas is a better community. Thoughts from Sarah Cotton Nelson, from page 6
improve D3’s content for subsequent classes. D3 was annually better because of your candid and authentic input.
Finally, thank you to each of you as individuals, and to your agencies overall, for jumping into D3 with your whole selves – whether you came with initial doubts or enthusiasm, hesitation or eagerness. The results, reported by you here and elsewhere, are remarkable. We recognize how much hard work you have poured into your organizations to make transformations possible. You, the people behind your agencies, are the ones supporting your clients to change their lives for the better, one person at a time. Margaret Mead clearly had groups like you in mind when she penned: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing
that ever has.” Thank you for being an example of this to all of us. You inspire me through your dedication and persistence, and make my heart glad to be a small part of your work. Richardson Adult Learning Center, from page 24
mailed it to our top donors and e-mailed it to the rest of our mailing list through a special edition of our monthly enewsletter. We then followed the annual report with our annual direct mail campaign that generally brings in $10,000 to $13,000 in contributions. This year, we raised almost $20,000 (as of November 2015). The only difference between this year and years past was the initial mailing of our annual report. Being able to share outcomes with storytelling in the annual report made a significant difference. This has had a greater impact on our donors than anything we’ve done to-date. People see us in a different light.” Sharing Life Community Outreach, from page 28
that ‘business’ set of eyes. D3 gave me that lens. It gave me the ability to say Sharing Life is a reputable important business. I remember being in class and hearing how much the nonprofit sector impacts the overall Gross Domestic Product in the United States and how much of what we do impacts employment numbers, because we are providing jobs - important jobs. I began to understand we’re not just over here handing out cans to families that are hungry. Everybody has to start somewhere, but the work we are doing now is a big deal and where we’re headed is an even bigger deal and we needed the tools D3 offered us.“
44
SHARE T HE MEMORIES
D3 Year 1: Bill Dawkins, Chief Financial Officer of H.I.S. BridgeBuilders
45
SHARE T HE MEMORIES (cont ’d)
D3 Year 1: Norman Henry, Chief Executive Officer, and Damon Polk, Chief Operating Officer of Builders of Hope. 46
SHARE T HE MEMORIES (cont ’d)
D3 Year 2: (from left to right),Teddie Story, Chief Executive Officer of Irving Cares; Paul Vance, former Board Chair for Richardson Adult Literacy Center; Katie Patterson, Executive Director of Richardson Adult Literacy Center; Marcia Barkis, Program Director for Richardson Adult Literacy Center; and Julia Black Program Manager for Irving Cares.
47
SHARE T HE MEMORIES (cont ’d)
D3 Year 2: (from left to right) Lauren Blitzer, Dallas Womens’ Foundation; Brandi Tanaka of Social Impact Architects; and Anne Reeder, Chief Executive Officer of the Wilkinson Center. 48
SHARE T HE MEMORIES (cont ’d)
D3 Year 3: Suzanne Smith, Facilitator from Social Impact Architects, leading a session on organizational change.
49
SHARE T HE MEMORIES (cont ’d)
D3 Year 3: Condell Garden, Executive Director of Interfaith Ministries of Denton and Randy Clinton, Executive Director of Community Enrichment Center 50
FINAL THOUGHTS F R O M O U R C O M M U N I T Y PA R T N E R S “The D3 program helped transform the conversation on data from one focused on challenge to one focused on opportunity. D3 has also helped nonprofits develop the tools, resources, and expertise necessary to take advantage of these opportunities. This commitment to discuss, collect, and leverage data has not only led to more impactful programming and an interest in innovation, but has also enhanced
collaboration between nonprofits and funders.” - Galen Smith, United Way of Metropolitan Dallas “What an incredible experience! Over the course of three years, I got to meet so many wonderful people and strengthen my relationships with organizations across the area. I was so impressed by the participants’ commitment throughout this program. Their very hard work and learning has clearly paid off, and the impact on service delivery is readily apparent.” - Lauren Blitzer, Dallas Women’s Foundation