Collaborating across organizations to address root causes and change conditions at the system level is a messy, long experience. There are so many different approaches - Collective Impact, Systemness, grassroots organizing, and so on - each with their own principles, frameworks, tools, and ways of doing the work “correctly.”

Collaborating across organizations to address root causes and change conditions at the system level is a messy, long experience. Over the next few months, I’m going to be exploring the life cycles of collaborative efforts and breaking them down into their essential elements, based on my own research, professional experience, and Elevate’s work in this space with partners working to improve systems across a range of issues.

Somebody asked me the other day if I really believed in collaboration. We were kvetching about the challenges of doing Collective Impact work, and at the time, I sort of laughed it off and made light of it. But it made me think…do I really think collaboration - amongst organizations within a social service landscape, to solve a specific social challenge or improve outcomes for a certain population - works? And if so, what makes it successful?

You might be surprised at what great sources of data you already have! Whether data collection is being implemented formally or informally, odds are you are paying attention to the impact of your work as well as trends in the work more broadly.

Elevate supports the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce (the Chamber) as they continue to bolster economic prosperity efforts within the Middle Tennessee region and statewide. Across our service offerings, we provide strategy, planning, evaluation, and facilitation support for three of the Chamber’s Talent Development initiatives including New Skills Ready, TN BLU-SkillSPAN, and the Academies of Nashville Partnership Council.

A key concept we try to infuse into our evaluation work and encourage our clients to consider is the concept of data equity, which highlights the need for fair and equitable access to and use of data in evaluation processes.

For nonprofit organizations, we want to be good stewards of the resources provided to us, therefore pilots and accepted failure may be scary concepts to try. However, breaking through an organizational learning disability and creating learning networks can start small, on the individual level, and embody the best stewardship of all: adapting from what you're learning.

Since December of 2022, Elevate has been fortunate to work on a project that aims to serve childcare providers in Nashville, with the longer term goal of increasing high quality childcare seats in Nashville. This conversation has been happening for the last few years in Nashville, with more and more attention being given to it in the midst of mayoral races and the need for an increased workforce as more companies come to the city.

Storytelling is a dynamic art form and tool that we engage with across the service areas of our clients, transcending a singular form of use. In both its art form and tool use, the presence of storytelling invites Elevate staff into the operationalization of our mission and values as we partner with our clients in their impactful work.

Running an organization is hard. In this blog, we give some helpful pointers on when it’s the best time to hire a consultant, what they can (and can’t) do for you, and so much more!

Enhancing Survey Accessibility

What can organizations do to develop learning practices that preserve institutional memory?

At the beginning of this month, our team attended the conference for American Evaluator’s Association (AEA) in New Orleans, and combined that trip with our annual staff retreat. We spent day one of our trip reflecting, discussing our individual and team values, and thinking about our priorities for the upcoming year, and the rest of the week in workshops and sessions at the conference. Here’s what our team has to say about their experiences.

Surveys are one of the most common data collection tools we encounter at Elevate, and for good reason! Surveys can be a helpful and relatively inexpensive way to gather quantitative (and sometimes qualitative) data from respondents about their attributes, perceptions, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.

While there are multiple frameworks and structures for how to engage in reflective practice, at its core reflective practice is a process for learning through and from our experiences to gain new insight about how we show up in our work.

At Elevate, we have the pleasure of working with many different groups working towards changing the systemic conditions that are creating and reinforcing marginalization and injustice. We do this in a number of spaces, from early childhood to homelessness to workforce development, and in every situation, we’re challenged by the complexity of the systems, the scope of the challenges, and the nuances of the relationships of the people in the room. These spaces require us to be not only skilled facilitators, but also constant learners and scholars of the ways in which systems change can actually be brought about.

When designing survey tools with our clients, we often receive many questions surrounding the demographic portion of the questionnaire. Demographic questions can be tricky for a number of reasons, and there is no real consensus around best practices. In this post, we will share Elevate’s answers to some demographic FAQs that are backed by literature and our own experience in consulting.

There have been so many difficult and painful challenges both nationally and across the world just since the start of 2020 that I was overwhelmed. I discovered that the strategies I had been using to “protect” myself left me so shut down and isolated that I was utterly unequipped when in mid 2021 really hard stuff started to happen in my personal life. I have found that by learning to face my own pain with acceptance and compassion, I have rebuilt my capacity to witness and feel the pain I have for the world, and that has grown my ability to engage and take action.

How can you communicate your impact if you can’t definitely know your program CAUSED an outcome. Demonstrating that a program or service was the sole cause of a program is challenging, if not nearly impossible. However, there is a solution. This challenge and solution come down to two key concepts: attribution and contribution.

Knowing how to identify and meaningfully engage them can be a powerful way to improve the quality of your work, add to its credibility, increase buy-in, while also exposing and helping to inform change around power imbalances and inequities. 

This toolkit can help you guide your stakeholder engagement.