Raise Your Voice Blog | Nicole Clark Consulting

12 Jan, 2022

Your Staff Knows Your Programs Better Than You

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-03-06T13:59:16-05:00January 12th, 2022|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: program design, staff capacity|0 Comments

You know your community better than your funder, and your programs are only successful when staff feel supported and have the capacity to do their jobs.

Your staff knows your programs so much in fact, that when you report to your board of directors or engage new funders, you rely heavily on them to provide details of the nuances of a program that warrants more funding and other forms of support.

As we know, sometimes programs are created in response to a variety of influential factors, including why programs are evaluated. Stakeholder needs (particularly ones with the most power) are a major factor.

One of my first consulting projects was the evaluation of a popular leadership program in New York City. I conducted several site visits to observe the participants and facilitators, administered the program survey and conducted focus groups.

Involving the staff in the evaluation (outside of getting logistic assistance from them) wasn’t on a radar until I started paying attention to their conversations with each other. In particular, conversations around the actual program.

The program’s main location was located in Manhattan, while this program site was in a different borough. I decided to speak more to the staff about their perspectives on this program, its location, and the intricate details that went into running it.

The program’s new site was chosen due to local landscape analysis (wanting to choose an area that didn’t have a program of this kind). This location ran concurrently with the Manhattan location and was chosen to test if the program could be replicated in another borough, provide more community-focused curriculum, and deliver the same level impact for participants living in this borough in comparison to the Manhattan site (which had participants from all five boroughs).

While participants enjoyed having the program in their community (it allowed them to travel less, plus they were able to connect more with local borough residents), what I got from the conversations with staff was that they were frustrated. It had been difficult engaging the local community, from knowing where local resources were from the tiring travel back and forth between all of the sites for this program (including the sites located outside of New York City).

When I brought this up with the executive director, I was informed that a key factor that determined the new site’s location was at the request of a funder, who saw the area as “up and coming” and wanted the organization to capitalize on it.

I knew how problematic this was, and using a landscape analysis as justification was just as problematic. Despite being an external evaluator, I felt that I didn’t have the power to advocate for the staff.

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5 Jan, 2022

Ask Nicole: Improving Capacity vs. Scaling Up

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2022-01-19T10:32:25-05:00January 5th, 2022|Categories: Strategic Planning & Sustainability|Tags: Ask Nicole, Capacity Building|0 Comments

Have a question you’d like to be featured? Let me know.

First off: Happy New Year!

Now, let’s get into the topic of improving capacity versus scaling up.

This is inspired by a comment from a colleague, who has been frustrated with their organization’s focus on scaling quickly, with little regard to making what they’re already doing, better.

I think it’s a complex issue. As an organization, you want to remain relevant and responsive to emerging issues, yet this can be at the expense of improving current programs and services while being being overworked, understaffed, and under resourced.

We see this with businesses that sell tangible products. There’s one company I purchase items from whose business scaled rapidly to meet the demands of new customers at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their business exploded during this time because they sell body products (and we all need body products to stay clean). They’re also Black-owned, and many Black owned businesses have benefited during this time.

The downside was that the supply (and staff capacity) wasn’t able to meet the demand, leading to shipping delays and frustrated customers.

I’ve seen it in the nonprofit sector. Organizations (particularly smaller ones) have a tendency to make themselves appear bigger than what their capacity allows. This can lead to more funding, more collaborations, more supporters, more press, and more opportunities. I’ve stopped being surprised by organizations that are implementing large scale initiatives —whether alone or in partnership—with a staff of maybe 5 people.

I also saw this back in my micro/clinical social work days. In my department, the focus was on getting as many clients in the door as possible, with little regard to 1) staff capacity to do the tasks required of us by leadership and 2) whether the programs and services we promoted to clients were of quality.

We experienced high staff turnover. In response, the department began hosting job fairs to bring in more staff with the promise of lowering caseloads. Which never happened.

This experience shaped my approach to how I work with clients and partners, and I feel in many ways, I’m shifting away from helping organizations raise the voices of women and girls of color (their program participants) to helping raise the voices (and concerns) of staff. You can’t have a program without participants, however:

Programs and services are only successful when staff feel supported and have the capacity to do their jobs well.

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3 Nov, 2021

Ask Nicole: Using Social Work Skills as a Consultant

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-11-03T12:27:51-04:00November 3rd, 2021|Categories: Public Health & Social Work|Tags: Ask Nicole, consulting, Social Work|0 Comments

A few months ago, I mentioned that I’ll be limiting the content I create around starting and running a consulting practice.

But I had a conversation with social work colleague recently that I couldn’t want to share! So, this month’s Ask Nicole is about consulting, but from the context of social work.

My colleague asked how I’ve used my social work skills as a consultant. In hindsight, my transition from full time direct services social work to full time consulting was pretty seamless, due in part to how my time was structured.

There’s more than one way to be a social worker. This is important, particularly if you’re either social work student, a social worker new to the field, or a seasoned professional looking for something different.

Likewise, most social workers start out at the micro level, working directly with individuals, children, and families. An opportunity can arise where you can serve in a supervisory or leadership role, moving from micro social work into mezzo and macro social work, but the clinical social work skills you learned in school will always be applicable regardless of your role as a social worker.

Here’s how my old process for engaging direct services clients influences how I currently engage with consulting clients.

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27 Oct, 2021

Try This: Prioritizing Data Findings

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-10-27T14:58:54-04:00October 27th, 2021|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Data Sense-Making, Stakeholders, Try This|0 Comments

Try this out and let me know how it goes for you.

On the road to becoming grassroots and data driven, it’s tempting to start collecting data as soon as possible to determine your impact.

From funders and program participants to community leaders and policy makers, data you’ve gleaned from focus groups, informant interviews, and surveys juggle voices and perspectives of many stakeholders.

But once you have all this data, what do you do with it? And how do you prioritize these voices?

Here are 3 ways (from easy-to-do to more time-consuming) to prioritize your data findings.

This activity is ideal for:

Anyone responsible for leading data sense making processes
Anyone interested in participating in data sense making processes
Anyone interested in applying evaluative thinking into their work

Here’s what you need:

Whatever setup you use to capture your ideas (laptop, pen and paper, whiteboard, etc.) but make sure it’s kept in a place that you can refer back to

The steps:

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20 Oct, 2021

Be Grassroots and Data Driven

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-10-20T09:29:41-04:00October 20th, 2021|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Evaluative Thinking, Grassroots, Nonprofits|0 Comments

*Starting with a simple question can lead to bigger impact.*

What does it mean to be data-driven as a nonprofit or smaller grassroots organization?

You’re navigating being responsive to the communities you serve, providing services and programming that provide a more just and equitable world, while also being responsive to demands on your organizational capacity.

Despite anecdotes and maybe a survey here or there that generally confirms you’re doing a good job, there’s still a demand for more proof, and it usually comes from whoever is holding the purse strings.

Being data-driven is bigger than the numbers you see and the stories you hear.

It’s also bigger than taking the numbers and molding them into stories that not only speak to hearts and minds, but generate research ideas and influences policy change.

So much of being data-driven prioritizes the demands and requests of external stakeholders, particularly funders.

In fact, many evaluation projects I’ve led started with the client organization seeking an external evaluator. They mentioned doing an external evaluation their grant as a deliverable, and now it’s anticipated by their funder.

Even with this as a deliverable, interpersonal barriers to being data-driven persists.

Being data-driven means moving beyond decision-making that primarily benefit funders and external stakeholders. It means making intentional learning investments that champion questioning, reflection, and action that directly benefit your staff AND stakeholders.

So how can nonprofits and small grassroots organizations become more data-driven? Here’s one simple, accessible way to get started:

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Your Staff Knows Your Programs Better Than You

Ask Nicole: Improving Capacity vs. Scaling Up

Ask Nicole: Using Social Work Skills as a Consultant

Try This: Prioritizing Data Findings

Be Grassroots and Data Driven

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