The Power of Positive Deviance

Positive deviance is the act of identifying a problem within a particular society or community and discovering a minority within that community that is approaching the same problem but with a different approach. The result creates a better or more positive outcome.

The consideration of positive deviance should hold significance in the grant proposal writing process. Funders receive an influx of proposals. In an attempt to stand out from the other potential grantees should be, “What makes my organization stand out? What innovation solutions have I considered?”

To look at positive deviance from a relatable perspective, I give the example of a healthy baby program. One may immediately picture the babies in Africa whose commercials show their distended bellies and teary eyes. Instead, I am talking about the babies in the United States. The ones in the same community in which we work, live and play. There are examples of positive deviance being practiced within communities regarding unhealthy newborn babies and what practices are being put into place by parents whose babies are healthier.

Example: It is widely known that breastmilk is best for babies. However, there is a community network of mothers of newborn babies, who are unable to breastfeed, and therefore have no choice but to feed their child formula milk. The majority of the mothers would probably not question the social norm and would feed their baby cow’s milk-based formula.

In my example of positive deviance, a nonprofit organization has developed a program and needs funding to implement its pilot program.

The organization has conducted research and concluded that babies can assimilate goat’s milk-based formulas more easily than cow’s milk. The organization seeking funding has identified zip codes of areas where babies that were on the cow’s milk formula had constipation, reflux, rashes, eczema, etc. while babies on goat milk formula have been shown to have a high percentage of being well, thriving, having regular bowel movements, less reflux, and fewer rashes. What if by providing goat’s milk to babies in specified zip codes, the percentage of healthy babies increased?

In this situation, requesting funding for a pilot program may pique the funder’s interest. The grant will be used for education, facilitators, and goat’s milk to be distributed to participating mothers and babies. The facilitators will be mothers who have had success with giving their child(ren) goat’s milk and are willing to tell their personal stories of success.

The notion of positive deviance is challenging, time-consuming, and requires effort. Communities often grapple with change and are often skeptical. The concept has merit when community members unite on being open to change. Fortunately, funders seem to be eagerly embracing novel ideas and concepts as long as there is research to support them.

-Kimberly Sellars-Bates