Over two sessions,
Paul Born (Tamarack)
spoke with Ira Barbell of the Annie E. Casey Foundation about impact in
neighbourhood revitalization work. Ira is a Senior Associate with the
Foundation, and is a key player in their Making Connections initiative.
Paul spoke with Ira about the background of the Foundation,
and what they’ve learned over the years about working with neighbourhoods.
They looked at some of the Foundation’s central ideas, such as leading
with data and ideas rather than programs and money. They also explored
Making Connections, and some of the learnings and challenges that came
out of the initiative.
In their second conversation, Paul and Ira invited
participants (including ANC, United Way, and Vibrant Communities members)
to engage in dialogue with Ira about impact and strategy in neighbourhood
revitalization. Specifically, they talked about what drives the work,
and what impact we try to achieve; about how the work fits into United
Way agendas across the country; and about how to keep the work relevant
and effective as projects grow.
On this page you’ll find:
Ira Barbell’s family hails from the Drummondville
area of Quebec, but moved to New York State when he was very young. Several
of his relatives lived in a one-block area, so he realized early on the
importance of family bonds. However, he also began to recognize injustice
at a young age, as he and his family were discouraged to speak French
outside of the home.
When he was in high school, Ira had an epiphany of sorts:
he realized that his own involvement in athletics had opened many doors
for him, but that others lacked those opportunities, regardless of their
talent. It was this discovery that drove him – after
three years in a pre-med program – to study psychology and sociology
in an attempt to understand how people lived and interacted. The first
person in his entire extended family to attend university, Ira received his
PhD in social work.
He began his career investigating child abuse and neglect
in New York State and continued to work at the state level in New York
and North Carolina until he joined the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 1992.
He is now a Senior Associate with the Foundation and has been a key player
in the Making Connections initiative.
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The
Annie E. Casey Foundation
was formed in 1948 by Jim Casey, the founder of the United Parcel Service.
Initially, it was a small operating foundation, providing foster care
for youth. Casey had observed, as an employer, that the stability of his
employees’ family backgrounds was a strong predictor of their performance
at work. He felt that investing in foster care for children, providing
stable homes for those who needed them, would contribute to both a stronger
workforce and a stronger community.
When Casey died in 1985, he left the majority of his
estate to the Foundation, whose Board remains closely tied to UPS. The
Board made a unique decision: they decided that even the fortune at their
disposal wasn’t enough to make a significant improvement to the
lives of disadvantaged children, and that they needed to leverage that
money to change the way that services were offered.
The Foundation then
moved into neighbourhoods to test the knowledge that it had acquired.
It practices a unique mixture of grant-making and operations, remaining
closely tied to the programs that receive its grants.
The Foundation is
driven by data and results, holding itself and its beneficiaries accountable
for capturing and utilizing learning.
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KIDS
COUNT, active in all 50 states, monitors the status of children and
families. Its goal is to provide hard data to decision-makers. It continues
to be a very powerful policy document for politicians and state governments
across the United States.
The Foundation makes strategic use of the KIDS COUNT
data to bring key players on board in its other initiatives. Hard data,
especially data that contradicts cities’ or states’ complacent
self-images, is a potent catalyst for change: it shocks people into action,
and gives them a place to start. Starting with hard data also provides
a means for measuring progress, as results are quantifiable.
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The Foundation’s other key leadership strategy
is to lead with ideas rather than with money. Although it has a huge amount
of money at its disposal, the Foundation offers only small grants when
it goes into a neighbourhood.
Ira explains, “When you lead with money, you find
that people tell you what they think you want to hear because they’re
so anxious for funding. What we needed was an honest appraisal of the
path forward: what each neighbourhood was willing to commit to, what they
felt prepared to change. This honesty is so key to engagement!”
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From the data gathered through KIDS COUNT, the Foundation
began to see that issues such as poverty or success
in school tended to cluster in particular neighbourhoods.
According to the Foundation:
- 15 to 20 percent of American children live with serious risks that
threaten their ability to succeed.
- These children and their families are disproportionately concentrated
in some 4,500 neighbourhoods across the country.
- They are disconnected from the economy, from quality human services,
and from social networks.
To benefit the children, the Foundation looks not only
at the context of their families, but their entire communities.
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The Foundation looked for cities willing to partner with
them. They eventually narrowed the field to 22 cities, and created the
Making Connections initiative. In each city, they made only small grants,
focusing instead on dialogue with the cities about what they were willing
to do and what was important. After the first two years, 12 cities dropped
out, leaving ten active sites that had the capacity and the commitment
to carry the work forward.
The initiative was built, not around a particular model
or program, but around a central set of ideas. Making Connections’
essential premise is that “Children do well when their families
do well, and families do better when they live in supportive neighbourhoods.”
To foster this kind of success, the initiative works
to connect families to economic opportunity, social networks, and services
and support. As Ira notes, “comprehensive community initiatives
tended to focus on one or maybe two of these three objectives, but we
couldn’t find any that had all three.”
The Foundation provided a team at each site to act as
catalysts or conveners to build capacity for consumer/resident leadership,
create conditions for change, look for emerging opportunities, and to
identify barriers to success. They built partnerships between people and
groups who normally would not have worked together, creating a safe space
for conversations to begin – though not without encountering resistance!
Slowly, they have been working to change public systems,
non-profit and government organizations. The Foundation uses data strategically
to encourage these groups to hold themselves accountable for the investments
they make and the outcomes that result.
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One of the major challenges facing Making Connections
has been the question of how to communicate their ideas and programs to
the residents of the participating neighbourhoods and to the public at
large. Public Relations firms were not familiar with extended campaigns
over long periods of time or with alternatives to the mainstream media.
Therefore, they were not useful.
The Foundation had some success partnering with small
university FM stations that broadcast locally, and with journalism
programs and communications departments at local schools. They also made
use of avenues such as church bulletins to get their message into the
informal community network.
Overall, though, Ira says, “We know how important
communication is because of how confusing it was when we were getting
into a change agenda. People create their own stories, and how do you
get your own message into that informal network so that it spreads like
wildfire in the community?”
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Points to consider:
- The difference between a national funder and a local United Way:
A national funder like the Annie E. Casey Foundation has the luxury
of a long-term, multi-generational approach and a learning-based focus,
whereas a local funder like the United Way experiences more pressure
to get direct, immediate results. On the other hand, a local United
Way can have great influence with the business community and other
local stakeholders – though many have not yet learned to leverage
this influence effectively. Communities respect United Ways as resources
for knowledge, whereas the fact that the Foundation's ability to provide grants
can distract groups from honest self-appraisal.
- The balance between impact and influence: Any sustainable initiative
needs to balance relatively short-term impact on residents and long-term
strategic influence on policy-makers and funders. Looking at long-term
change is a challenge!
Many participants felt that their organizations
did not yet have a really clear articulation of strategy, in terms
of why they’re getting involved in neighbourhood revitalization
work, but there was a lot of optimism about heading in this direction.
Where is your organization or collaboration in this process?
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Over the past decade, United Ways have been grappling
with change. They face the question, “Are we changing results or
just funding services?” Alternative campaigns have appeared, especially
in inner cities, further challenging the role of the United Way in these
communities.
At the beginning of the Making Connections initiative,
the Annie E. Casey Foundation began conversations with many United Ways
about their ability to alter unhealthy conditions in a systemic way, as
well as offering programs to those in need. Ira insists that it can’t
be an either/or question – it must be a balance of both.
Now, community impact agendas are becoming a viable alternative
means of defining the role of the United Way in communities. United Ways
can build on their credibility in leadership in human services and can
make use of their leverage in the community to bring stakeholders to the
table.
This is not an easy process, though. Some thoughts to
ponder:
- How do you make this shift from an organizational standpoint? What
does it mean in terms of your staff, and the culture of your whole
organization?
- Ira talked about the stories that build up organizational culture,
and stressed the importance of capturing the stories that give life
to the new vision of the United Way’s role. If you can get the
stories circulating then people begin to change the way they think
of your organization.
- The participants in the call agreed that this is an exciting but
very challenging shift!
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Ira offered a collection of ideas to consider when scaling
up this kind of work:
- Data collection and analysis are core elements in maintaining credibility
with neighbourhood and institutional partners.
- Lead with ideas, not money.
- Be persuasive about what has not worked in the past and why you
think there’s a better way to get results in the future.
- Public will is essential, not just in the neighbourhood. It takes
political commitment, which must be backed by a larger constituency.
- Educate government partners and the business
community, as well as neighbourhood residents. You cannot assume that
big funders are any more knowledgeable about or committed to this
work than local residents.
- Make new mistakes! Make this your mantra: do not repeat the same
mistakes that were made in the past. Be innovative and take risks,
so at least when you do make mistakes, they are not the same ones
that have been made all along.
- Leadership is important, but it is not enough. You also need skilled
people to implement the ideas you are talking about on the ground.
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The
Annie E. Casey Foundation website - The Foundation’s
home page has a wealth of links to their many initiatives and resources.
To visit the website, click here.
Speech
by Foundation President Douglas W. Nelson – This speech
gives a good introduction to the Foundation’s philosophy, and the
thinking behind their many initiatives. A great place to start to get
a feel for the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s work! You can read the
speech here.
Annie
E. Casey and Making Connections - Ira Barbell kindly
provided a set of PowerPoint slides outlining the background information
about the Annie E. Casey Foundation. A PDF version is available
for download here.
Making
Connections: Core Results - The initiative’s six core
results, which form the basis of its work and to which it holds itself
accountable, are available here.
Making
Connections: Reading Room – The Reading Room contains
a wealth of information, including case studies of neighbourhood revitalization
work done in various Making Connections sites, and a selection of guides
from the Technical Assistance/Research Center (TARC) arm of the Annie
E. Casey Foundation. You can find the reading room here.
KIDS
COUNT Data Book Online - The site offers a wide variety of
ways to access and view the data, as well as a Resource Guide for finding
more information about programs referenced in the survey. The 2006 report
provides detailed information on many indicators on a state-by-state basis.
Access the report here.
Using
Strategic Communication to Support Families - This guidebook,
from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, was intended for the Making Connections
sites, but it is a wonderful resource for ANC sites and others involved
in neighbourhood revitalization. The guide defines the principles and
components of effective communication and shows how communicating can
be a critical element of success. The guide presents an array of options
for communicating and a framework for thinking strategically about choices.
Access the guidebook here.
Points
of Light - A Matter of Survival: Volunteering– Points
of Light, with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has produced a guide about
volunteerism and neighbourhood revitalization, available here.
Points
of Light - Neighbouring Action Kit – The Points of
Light Foundation has an online Neighbouring Action Kit, with strategies
and ideas for everyone from national organizations to local residents,
which is available here.
Orienteering
Over New Ground: A Neighbourhood Theory of Change - This
Caledon Institute/Action for Neighbourhood Change paper discusses the
action learning on the interrelationships and role of transformational
change among neighbourhoods, bridge builders, and associated systems of
support, through the experience of the ANC project. Access the paper here.
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Audio Description: |
Click to
download |
Making an Impact: A Dialogue with
Ira Barbell Part 1 (runs 01:11:35) |
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Making an Impact: A Dialogue with
Ira Barbell Part 2 (runs 01:15:40) |
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NOTE:
Depending on your internet connection speed, the audio file may
take a few minutes to download. |
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Action for Neighbourhood Change
was in operation from 2005-2007. This site exists to capture and share
the learnings that emerged from this initiative, but new material is
no longer being added on a regular basis. ANC is not responsible for
the content of external links, which may change; however, if you find
a broken link, please let us know.
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