Speed & Direction in Social Impact

One of the unique aspects of military service I really appreciated was the way language was used. Each service branch has their own unique types of phrases and vernacular.

In the Army, we tried to use simple phrases to summarize more complicated functions. One of those that I still use to this day is a bit specific to flying helicopters; describing something as "All Velocity, No Vector".

It’s a succinct way to describe an organization, program, or even a person that is doing a lot, but lacks directional focus. This person or program may not quite be a whirling top, as it’s not destructive or pointless activity, but it does run the risk of being off course. This persons objective is usually speed of activity, not necessarily mission alignment. ?

In the social impact and nonprofit sector, there is a decent amount of potential for this to occur. The desire to serve critical needs, and the at-times rapidly changing environment can create a external pressure for speed over direction.

It’s why I’m committed to visualizing, specifying, and communicating about our logic model at Hire Heroes USA . In many ways, this is some of the most important work a nonprofit organization should do - investing the time and energy to ensure your work has focus, and the impact is clearly defined. You have to do the focused work to understand, specify, and describe how your work has impact.?That focus allows you to stay disciplined, and on mission.

A social impact logic model takes you through the process workflow from points A to Z, from Inputs to your organization, all the way through your measurement of Impact. That measurement sets your “vector”, and as a leader you can ensure each activity, output, and KPI measured is aligned with that final impact.?

In executing this kind of a logic model , you are forced to answer the tough questions about what matters, why they matter, and how you measure and track those items.?

It also forces you to really clarify if an metric is Impact, or if it’s activity, outputs, or outcomes. That rigor of the logic model is a challenge, but sets you up for a sustainable business practice.?

Take for example any of the following metrics:?

• # people trained
• # attendees at event
• # website visits
• Cohort completion %
• # volunteers
• Avg annual salary attained
• # mentor connections?

None of these are #impact measures. Some are input, some are activities, but none really define the final state of the work and the altered change in the environment that came from the work.?

Even if each of these measurements were shifted to describe a change in conditions they would still only describe an outcome. More work and understanding is needed to define the impact that outcome enabled.

Having measurements of these transition states in your logic model is necessary, and important, but it takes real work to move past these easy to measure activities to define true impact.

If you want to truly make a difference, you need to “do the work” to do the work. You’ve got to define the final endstate, and set that Vector for your team, so their activity and velocity is all pointed in the same direction.?