December, A Time for Reflection

There’s an article from the September-October 2024 magazine of the Harvard Business Review where Michael Luca and Amy C. Edmondson (you’ll recognize that name from ‘psychological safety’ and Right Kind of Wrong) that summarizes ACT’s mission beautifully:

“When considering internal data or the results of a study, often business leaders either take the evidence presented as gospel or dismiss it altogether. Both approaches are misguided. “ ~Summary, Where Data-Driven Decision-Making Can Go Wrong

The article goes into greater detail and calls out the importance of matching information with the question being asked (internal validity), the pitfall of underestimating the importance of sample size (particularly relevant to many counties in our region), and the challenge of aligning outcomes with actual program activities. It is as though the authors have attended meetings here in Rochester!

We at ACT Rochester have turned to narrative as another key part of the solution to data-driven decision-making going wrong. If we challenge our default assumptions, we are more likely to ask the questions that Luca and Edmondson suggest and avoid the pitfalls.

So, in the spirit of reinforcing new ideas, the Brain Food posts in the month of December will be re-posts from the time before email alerts. We will highlight staff top picks from posts before October. ACT Rochester social media will call out older posts as well. We have worked hard on Brain Food throughout all of 2024 and want to make sure you don’t miss anything!

Happy December, friends of ACT! Please enjoy your Brain Food, nutrition for healthy thought :-)

How is it already November?

It’s November 1st!

We are nearing the end of the calendar year for 2024 - what are you focusing on? Is there a storyline you’ve been stuck in that you need to change? Is there an old statistic that you rely on in conversation that needs updating? There are two months of 2024 left to execute our resolutions before we make some more for 2025. Please consider adding ACT to your reflection - if you have any feedback, please feel free to send it to actrochester@racf.org and please fill out the pop-up survey when you visit the website!

November is also a celebration month for a whole range of things, including:

• National Adoption Month

• American Diabetes Month

• Aviation History Month

• Banana Pudding Lovers Month

• Bereaved Siblings Month, Worldwide

• Diabetic Eye Disease Month

• National Epilepsy Awareness Month

• Eye Donation Month

• National Family Caregivers Month

• National Georgia Pecan Month

• National Inspirational Role Models Month

• National Long-Term Care Awareness Month

• Lung Cancer Awareness Month

• National Marrow Awareness Month

• Movember

• National Memoir Writing Month

• National Native-American Heritage Month

• National Novel Writing Month

• Peanut Butter Lovers’ Month

• Picture Book Month

• Prematurity Awareness Month

• National Runaway Prevention Month

• Vegan Month, Worldwide

What are you going to celebrate this November?

National Zoning Atlas + Local Update

I attended Reconnect Rochester’s film event - “The Sprawl Effect” - last week, and it was fantastic! Information, important conversation, and inspiration were plentiful.

At the event, I was introduced to a new resource that is relevant to zoning conversations that I know are happening across our community. Reminder: zoning codes were highlighted in Poverty, by America as a key area to focus on for poverty abolitionist work.

The resources is the National Zoning Atlas, an effort to digitize, demystify, and democratize (the 3 Ds!) zoning codes across urban counties in the US. Of particular interest is an interactive map, that includes zoning information about much of Monroe County. In addition to the map, the website includes a section called ‘Atlases in Action’ that provides snapshots, examples of advocacy, analysis, and some curated research on the topic. It is worth perusing!

Note: the project’s focus seems to be urban areas and therefore only areas within Monroe County are included at this stage, and even within Monroe County there are some gaps (Irondequoit is not available, for example). The project is in building mode so we hope that their good work expands into the other 7 counties of our region.

Consider using the National Zoning Atlas to check your facts and inform your conversations about zoning codes in Monroe County! The link is also included on the National Data Sources and Services page under Resources (a great reference list!).

UPDATE: In a brilliant example of communicating and connecting, Shane Wiegand (of Our Local History at CCSI) alerted me to a local project done in collaboration with Dr. Stu Jordan at the University of Rochester on zoning regulations and city planning. Please find an excellent story map here and a map specific to exclusionary zoning in Monroe County (with 2018 data) here.

3 Excellent Short Reads on Public Safety

The issues of crime and public safety have been top-of-mind since before COVID, and then the circumstances of the pandemic made everything worse. So, communities across the country have been struggling with crime statistics, identifying trends, and attempting to intervene effectively.

Chicago and the University of Chicago Crime Lab have been center stage. The Crime Lab is nationally recognized for its applied research and is often seen as the gold standard for evidence-based intervention toward public safety.

On September 23rd, 2023, three articles came out that highlight the work of Chicago’s Crime Lab and provide high quality food for thought:

1. An article about the difference between data and personal experience, and what the experience gap tells us about the reality behind the numbers. I know that I have heard friends and colleagues talk about the confusion of data trends that show reduced crime while at the same time feeling less safe downtown than we can remember. This article provides approachable insight. Highly recommend!

2. An article about an approach to gun violence prevention that has been successful in high risk neighborhoods in Chicago

3. Commentary directly from staff at UChicago Crime Lab and insight into some of the work that the Crime Lab has done that shows promise and innovation, including the establishment of Strategic Decision Support Centers (SDSCs) for data-driven decision-making

Please consider reading all three articles, particularly as you engage in conversations about public safety in the city of Rochester. We need to learn from Chicago and see what we can customize for the Rochester context.

Brain food for evidence-based decision making around public safety!

Football Season

It’s football season!

Whether you like the NFL, college football, or soccer (called football in the rest of the world!), you’ll notice how often sports use statistics. Announcers are always citing average yards and indicators that put quarterback statistics in context of their current or historical quarterback peers. Data is everywhere!

The point is, that indicators and statistics are commonly used in sports as part of the story. Sports data has been normalized. Sports fans tend to know statistics of their teams, even if they don’t consider themselves data savvy. They know the numbers that are important for their team’s performance.

Football season is a reminder that data, statistics, and indicators are just part of the story you are trying to tell. Adding numbers does not mean you’re adding complication, or that you need an advanced degree to understand.

How can we normalize data in the stories we tell about our community? How can we get as comfortable with statistics about child poverty as we are with Josh Allen’s player stats?

We should be comfortable including numbers in the important stories we are trying to tell. Please know that ACT Rochester is here to help!

GO BILLS!

Curated article: When Neighbors Choose…

Next City published an article on August 6th, 2024 that gives an interesting example of community-led grantmaking. Community members are making decisions about programming, and the money follows. See “When Neighbors Choose How To Spend Philanthropic When Neighbors Choose How To Spend Philanthropic Dollars.”

The story is about the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, a neighborhood hit hard by the opioid epidemic. This case study is a very interesting example of how neighborhoods can drive their own revitalization, and of a new dynamic with philanthropy. 

Food for thought!

Podcast: How to be productive without burning out

In February of 2024 there was an episode of Organizational Psychologist Adam Grant’s podcast ReThinking (based on his book Think Again, which I *highly* recommend) about the challenge in measuring productivity. The episode is titled “How to be productive without burning out” and is in conversation with Cal Newport. Please give it a listen!

The entertaining conversation of two adept sparring partners is about measuring productivity in jobs that have hard-to-measure outputs. They reference the knowledge and service industries as case studies for the productivity dilemma, but I urge you to also think of the non-profit and social sector as you listen. The strategic question posed to me most often is: how do I measure the impact of _____ ? How can we count, measure, assess our work so that we can then determine whether it was “good”? These are really tough questions and this podcast was catalytic in my own thinking, which I now offer to the ACT audience. 

I hope you enjoy this listen as much as I did! How can we integrate Slow Productivity into our operating systems?

A State-Level Look at the Social Safety Net

The US social safety net is a collection of programs meant to support families experiencing financial hardship. The provision of these programs varies widely by state, and Brookings has published an article and interactive data tool for us to review New York State. These are great references to consider, particularly as we think about the elections coming up in November and the overall well-being of our community. 

As you review these tools, also consider New York State tax credit policies, laid out and defined here. Consider looking up other states as well, so you can put New York in context.  

Some Facts About Rental Housing

On the heels of sociologist Matthew Desmond’s visit to Rochester in March 2024, housing and renting circumstances are top of mind for poverty abolitionists. (See also Eviction Lab resources, but note that none of the counties in our region are included). 

In March 2024, the Brookings Institution published an article “Ten Economic Facts about Rental Housing” that provides important information about the average circumstances of renters. 

Reading articles like this provides some data about housing realities in Rochester, the full 8-county region, and nationwide. 

What story do you have about renters? What did you learn in this article that challenged your story?

The Pursuit of Improvement

In our last post, we shared a bit about the importance of pilot programs and the value of having an end point to analyze impact. Pilots are one example of using improvement science to find solutions and make changes.

Taking a wider view, pilots are often part of a commonly used approach called the Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) Cycle. Data is at the heart of every step in this systematic problem-solving model. It is essential for understanding the problem, identifying potential solutions, and determining whether these changes actually lead to improvement.

Learn more about how the PDSA Cycle works and how it can be applied to almost any improvement project and feel free to contact actrochester@racf.org for assistance.

Impact: Measuring the Difference We Make

Impact is a buzzword, particularly in the nonprofit space. What is our impact? Are our programs having impact? The challenge is that “impact” means different things to different people, and social science has a strong opinion. Impact indicates causality and can only be determined through rigorous evaluation. 

An inherently empirical term, impact is the difference in a specific outcome resulting from a particular intervention versus the outcome that results without that intervention. You could think of it like a math problem:

(Outcome with Intervention) – (Outcome without Intervention) = Impact

We often hear of impact defined as an intervention’s results (without evaluation) or even as a measure of output, such as the number of meals served. The danger in the disassociation between impact and causality is that we are setting ourselves up to connect the wrong dots, coming to an inaccurate conclusion because we omitted the science.

As you plan future projects, consider the science behind impact and how you want to measure success. Remember: ACT Rochester is here to help! 

For technical assistance feel free to email actrochester@racf.org