Why Our Noblest Intentions Often Make No Impact
Bianca was first sexually abused at the age of 12. Although Bianca’s particular story is purely illustrative, it’s tragically common in Bolivia, where 1 in 3 girls are sexually abused before the age of 18. The backlash from the abuse Bianca experienced has been nearly as horrifying as the initial experiences. She has a hard time sleeping, has developed various eating disorders and is terrified of developing any mildly intimate relationship with a man. She’s completely disengaged socially and academically. She hopelessly succumbs to attacks of anxiety, loneliness, depression and fear. The combination of so much trauma drives her to have perpetual suicidal thoughts, which often leads to self-harm. Overall, Bianca has lived over half of her teenage life entirely empty and unhappy.
4 years later, at the age of 16, Bianca found a non-profit called A Change for Good (CFG). CFG’s mission is to help young sexual abuse victims in Bolivia. CFG connects Bianca with psychologists, therapists and children who have experienced similar traumas. The work is challenging as it is no small task to overcome years of unspeakable abuse. CFG spends months and years at times with a young client offering psychological therapy, support groups and deliberate social integration. After receiving services from CFG, Bianca reports having fewer nightmares and only experiences eating disorder symptoms a couple of times a month. So, CFG counts Bianca a “success.” Her story is told in appropriate ways to donors who feel a rush of satisfaction that they are part of such noble and effective work. After all, they are helping these young sexual abuse victims overcome some very significant challenges, right? And isn’t that the problem CFG set out to tackle in the first place?
Maybe not.
In order to understand if we’re truly having an impact on a particular social problem, we must measure it. However, we often make two grievous measurement mistakes which make it impossible to determine our true level of impact success.
1. We Make Molehills out of Mountains.
One way we lose sight of our ultimate objective (the mountain) is by focusing our attention on the molehills we assume inevitably lead there. Molehills are secondary outcomes, or results, from our activities. They are true, positive changes, but fall far short of the real result we implicitly claim to be about. In CFG’s case, the molehills are the results they’ve been seeing in Bianca and other children — things like increased involvement in school, reduced eating disorders, etc. Typically, there are many molehills and they are much easier to measure. Make no mistake, these outcomes are wonderful! However, if we fail to measure the mountain we can fool ourselves into thinking we are actually ascending it.
Two crucial questions can help CFG’s leaders refocus on ultimate rather than secondary results:
- If all you achieved is the outcome you’re measuring, would you be satisfied? And, if the answer is no…
- What do you really want?
As CFG’s leaders reflect on these questions, and their reason for getting involved in their selfless work, they arrive at a transforming insight: “Our goal,” the CEO concludes, “was not to eliminate eating disorders, it was to enable happiness. We wanted to help these children remove every obstacle to having a happy, productive life.” Bianca may be able to sleep and eat better. But in spite of her progress, she still won’t allow herself to come close to the opposite gender, isolates at school and is still haunted by constant anxiety. So, you decide. Is Bianca truly happy? Can we consider her a success? And equally important, what will happen to CFG if it measures results as it currently does?
Although CFG’s secondary outcomes may be part of their ascent up their impact mountain, secondary outcomes do not directly indicate impact success. But if your measures aim your organization primarily at the secondary measure, you’ll develop a team of molehill climbers.
CFG’s must find a way to measure its mountain: the overall happiness and fulfillment level of their young beneficiaries before and after their program.
2. The Elite Climber Assumption
Once our impact mountains are identified, we often assume all of our beneficiaries are capable of climbing them. Imagine CFG helps 20 children through their program, sees a dramatic increase in each of their happiness and fulfillment levels, and deems their service successful. How can you not buy into that success story? They have 20 heart-warming anecdotes of completely innocent Bolivian children, once hopelessly miserable who were able to turn their lives around! CFG claims a 100% happiness increase rate and begins measuring their success as the number of children that complete their program.
As many of us would, CFG assumes the program will work with Bianca due to their many previous success stories. As it turns out, Bianca still isn’t particularly happy or fulfilled post-program. Therefore, CFG is not having continued impact success. We must understand that all of our beneficiaries are not elite climbers. The metrics we choose to measure must always be based on our desired outcomes, not inspirational anecdotes.
A reflective question for CFG’s leadership team could help them gauge if they’re slipping into the elite climber assumption:
- Are all of your beneficiaries enjoying the same results as the first few groups? How do you know?
If CFG claimed success based on their first few anecdotal successes, what would happen to Bianca and all the children after her? They would complete the program and resume their lives right where they left off — miserable and hopeless.
We often remember emotional, heart-warming stories more than impressive statistics. Success stories are wonderful, but in order to claim success with integrity, CFG’s leaders must measure the same outcomes for everyone. Most of us aren’t elite climbers.
Reflect on your impact strategy and change it as necessary. Try to comprehend the impact mountain you so deeply desire to ascend, make a plan to measure your progress, then help all of your climbers reach the peak.
