Social Impact: How well do you understand the problem?
Introducing our first post from guest blogger Carrie Leaver of Social Agents Impact Consulting. Carrie is a strong advocate for social entrepreneurship and a hustler for South African dreams. In this first post on social impact, she reveals how we could be standing in our own way when it comes to addressing social issues, and how to step aside.
Driven by compassion and a philanthropic spirit, we’re eager to bring solutions and help those in need. But, often we jump to solutions before thoroughly understanding the beast of the problem we’re hoping to address. We also too easily ASSUME we know the answers, and when implementing solutions without really understanding the nature of the problem, our impact is only half of what it could be, and can even bring unforeseen and negative consequences. Delving into our problem statement may not be the most exciting part of our work, but it sure does bring unexpected insight and answers, and shapes the face of our solution significantly.
Here’s a checklist to tick off before implementing solutions.
Social Impact: Steps to Understanding Your Problem
1. Articulating the Problem Statement
When someone asks you why you do what you do, are you able to articulate it clearly and simply? Or do you end up talking for 5 minutes, leaving your acquaintance feeling sorry they asked?
“Try this; summarise your problem into ONE SENTENCE.”
Here’s how you do it: answer ‘who’, ‘where’, ‘what’ and ‘why’ in a single line.
Who? Briefly describe your beneficiaries or customers.
Where? Where is your problem most predominant? This gives us focus, especially for new projects and enterprises.
What? What is the actual problem?
Why? Why is the problem a problem? What causes it?
Bring these together to create one, simple and crystal-clear problem statement.
For example:
1. Poor households of Mthatha in the Eastern Cape are threatened by food insecurity due to the lack of access to healthy and nutritious food.
This is a summary of your problem and allows you, as a changemaker, to focus and others to clearly understand your work.
2. Conscious Research
It’s obvious one needs to research what one is getting oneself into. But how conscious of our research methods are we? We need to remind ourselves that any information we gather online may not directly match our work due to, culture, political and/or environmental differences. And what if we learn something we never would have expected? Unexpected findings may scare us and set us back, but it’s a great opportunity to revise our projects, their sustainability and to avoid wasted capital and resources.
When we’re out in the field, talking to community members and stakeholders, what language are we using? Are we asking the right questions? Are we limiting our findings and insight through a flood of multiple choice questions rather than more open ones? Are we speaking to ALL stakeholders? Are we holding conversations in safe spaces? For example, a high school learner may not feel completely safe opening up at school but rather somewhere he/she doesn’t feel watched or vulnerable to authority.
“A problem’s true nature can be well understood once we understand various stakeholder’s
experiences and perspectives.”
Hosting workshops and dialogues are an effective way to understand peoples’ experience, rather than structured one-on- one questionnaires. Most importantly, are we culturally aware and considerate to social norms that may differ from our own? The last thing we want to do is offend a stakeholder or community member. If we’re not able to consider these for our initial conversations, it’s going to be difficult to consider them when we’re implementing our projects, meaning our impact will be highly flawed.
3. Problem Predictions
As part of being conscious while we learn more about what we’re dealing with, it’s important yet often neglected, to think what the problem could look like in the future considering various factors. What if the drought in Cape Town never ends? How will this influence your problem? Could Zuma’s resignation have any indirect impact on your problem, either good or bad? If so, we should consider these and prepare for them.
For example, when South Africa was announced as the hosts for the 2010 Fifa World Cup, it was crucial for those working with victims and prevention of human trafficking to prepare for the implications of a soccer world cup on their existing problem. They had six years to consider and prepare for this.
4. Dangerous Assumptions
Far too often, impact projects implement work on assumptions and neglect conscious research and awareness. We ASSUME that a single training session, programme or course allows people to understand, learn and therefore, succeed. Change isn’t that quick, unfortunately.
We ASSUME others need school shoes above 3 meals a day. Shoes are quickly sold to buy food. We ASSUME smart boards in township schools will enhance learning. What good are they if they’re locked in a store room for months on end due to fear of them being stolen? Assumptions often cause us to be short-sighted when it comes to the problem we’re trying to solve. We should be careful of being hasty to implement our innovative and awesome
solutions until we are certain we’ve covered as many bases of our problem as possible. This will ensure that our projects are relevant and our impact true.
If you’re keen to make real social impact in South Africa by connecting with other changemakers, join Brownie Points and Social Agents today, and let’s create lasting impact together.
