Terms Of Reference Podcast

Professor Chris Blattman is the Ramalee E. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies at The University of Chicago, at the Harris School of Public Policy, as well as a research associate at National Bureau of Economic Research, among many other things. He's a heavyweight in the world of understanding what works - and more importantly what doesn't - in aid and development.

As you'll hear on the show, Chris thinks he's a professor because he was a failed development professional. This is actually a lucky turn for the rest of us because he is a critical voice in the R&D department of the development and aid sector. In our discussion, you'll hear us discuss how research finds its way into practice and how we learned that microfinance doesn’t work to alleviate poverty. We also discuss why you can’t test programs and programming, but rather you have to test the assumptions those programs are built on, in order to find out what works. We round out our discussion on what the future of the social sector could look like over the next five years.

There is a beautiful simplicity to the commercial sector. Anyone can create products and services that satisfy a real or perceived need in whatever market(s) they want. Then, with the right marketing and (hopefully) added value from the "better mousetraps" people create, the business can realize a profit. And that, ultimately, is the measure of your success.
Unfortunately, finding the same simplicity in the social sector is difficult. While social enterprises, non profits and charities are on the constant lookout for, or purposeful invention of, products and services that satisfy real (or perceived) needs, rather than seeing profit as the end game, the social sector seeks an overall improved human condition. This presents something of a conundrum because we still have so much trouble, as a human community, agreeing about what improvement means.
I know there is a lot to unpack in this seemingly simple distinction. But, fortunately, that is exactly why I am so excited to introduce my guest for the 149th Terms of Reference Podcast. Paula Kravitz is a Strategic Advisor for the Social Progress Imperative - a Washington, DC based enterprise dedicated to redefining how the world measures and achieves social progress. Before SPI, Paula spent a decade at the Skoll Foundation where she directed and curated the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
Said another way, Paula has been at the forefront of thinking on the social sector for the last 10 years. And, if I’m completely honest, as I hope comes out in our conversation, Paula is tapped into what is essentially the reason behind why I started Aidpreneur and this podcast in the first place - the need for a shake up of the social sector in order to redefine and align what it is we’re all trying to achieve as a collective body dedicated to human flourishing.

We’ve be fortunate enough to have guests on this show from across the entire spectrum of the social sector and from around the world. One of the common issues we’ve talked about is resource scarcity and how that presents both unique opportunities for innovation and challenges in terms of programming, priorities and management.

Today, we’re going to look at the other side of the coin and discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with an organization that’s focused on helping solve some of the world’s most challenging problems, but also has scale, and the very real ability to leverage that scale.

My guest today is Jamey Butcher, who is an Executive Vice President at Chemonics and currently leads the Strategic Communications and Solutions Division. I’m excited about this episode because I think it really gives a peek under the hood of what is possible within a large development organization. Just to give you a taste, we cover things like: how Chemonics approaches ICT4D, how they are working to make internal communication and learning sexy, the focus of several strategic partnership, the missing middle in impact investing and much, much more.

Let's say you woke up tomorrow to the sound of someone knocking at your door. And, when you answer, the person standing outside politely explained that they were a representative of a energy company that had recently acquired the rights to extract the natural gas in the area. Oh, and a great deal of that resource happens to be located under your house.

Or, what if you were able to track changes in the water your community uses for drinking, cooking, bathing and cleaning physically change over the past few years - from a pure, clean resource, to one that is smelly, polluted or fouled in some other way. And that those changes began when a mining operation started upstream.

Now here's the kicker - you are unable to bring a complaint against thees resource extraction companies simply because you lack the time, money or other resources. Or, an even more likely scenario, if and when you do bring your issues to your local or national authorities, you find that the scales are tipped against you simply because the companies have access to seemingly unlimited amounts of time, money and insider knowledge.

My guest for the 147th Terms of Reference Podcast, Flaviano Bianchini, is intimately familiar with stories similar to these from around the world. But rather than just listen, he has helped create a powerful solution that has helped communities to fight back and tip the scales in their favor. Flaviano's organization, Source International, helps communities that are adversely affected by resource extraction activities, like mining or well drilling, by providing them with scientific and legal resources. As you'll hear us discuss, the support provided by Source has created profound results - large scale monetary rewards, injunctions against extraction activities and, in one case, completely rewriting mining laws.

How obsessed are you with goal setting? I mean seriously - if you've been living on planet earth you know that, those invested in the science of achievement, have done an incredible of not only convincing, but actually getting us as a whole to adopt goal setting as a lifestyle. And, full disclosure, I am not only a living, breathing product of this paradigm, but I'm also one of its loudest proponents (at least in my mind).

Goal setting has become something of an absolute in the design of products, services and programs in the social sector, as well. Just think of how many times you've designed theories of change, conceptual and logical frameworks or SMART indicators. You know what I'm talking about here - the obsession with defining the results that we want to achieve with our work and, perhaps even more importantly, how will measure our progress towards achieving them.

While I could hold court on how to improve the way we design programs to achieve social goals for the next 4 days, here's the thing: this show isn't about that. In fact we're about to spend the next hour and change talking about how creating objective goals may be the exact wrong thing to do when trying to achieve something amazing.

My guest, and truly the inspiration, for this episode is Dr. Kenneth Stanley. He currently works for Uber Labs while on leave from the University of Central Florida where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science. Ken focuses on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. I learned about Ken from ISG's Director, Micheal Klein, when he shared an article with me from the 538 blog titled "Stop Trying To Be Creative," that was written by Christie Aschwanden. I'll let you read that on your own, but suffice it to say that I was intrigued and had to know more - and how it might apply to the business of helping others.

And, I think that's exactly what you'll get in this episode. The revelation in this podcast should, ultimately, blow your mind. We get started by talking about AI and Ken's pet project (called Picbreeder) and how that led to his discovery that objectively determining what we want to achieve may be the best way to miss out on true awesomeness

Two very common themes in the aid and development community are “resource scarcity” (some even call this resource starvation) and “locally driven solutions.”

The particular resource scarcity I am referring to is a lack of funding. This is a conversation you cannot avoid, because the challenges always seem to be greater than the available pools of money, and one that, unfortunately, will only become more acute as we navigate the age of Trump and the new populism.

Locally driven solutions refers to an ideal that contextualization of products and services results in solutions that are more appropriate, more readily accepted and potentially more durable, or sustainable. By supporting the development of answers at the local level, it is also assumed that we will foster a greater set of unique ideas, which spurs innovation and invention globally.

While these two themes, at least at first blush, seem fundamentally in tension with one another there are a number of approaches that successfully bridge the gap. One of these approaches involves the use of technologies, processes, creative outputs and more that are “open source.” Open source products and services are free, community driven and have a number of incredibly successful examples.

My guest for the 145th Terms of Reference Podcast is something of an open source evangelist. Giulio Coppi is the founder of an initiative called High Tech Humanitarians, which purports to be the first free online platform for collaborative humanitarian innovation on open source technology. He is also CEO of Open Focus, a non profit devoted to open source technology for good and is an Humanitarian Innovation Fellow at the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham University in New York. As you no doubt have guessed, Gulio deeply believes that open source provides a platform to drive otherwise missing, misplaced or misaligned innovation for the humanitarian sector

While we live in a world of unprecedented prosperity for many, we also live in a world that is experiencing unprecedented levels of humanitarian crisis. You know the examples: protracted violent conflicts, devastation caused by earthquakes or hurricanes, the specters of famine or disease outbreak... unfortunately the list goes on and on.

The good news is that we have a humanitarian community that does a fantastic job of responding to these crises with the resources available to them. In large part, supplies arrive, shelter is provided and people receive care until a time in which they can begin the transition back to normalcy.

Unfortunately, as with the creation of any system, developing the capacity to address these large scale crises has produced unintended consequences and externalities. One of these externalities is a logistics and supply chain ecosystem that is bureaucratic, expensive and rigid. On this, the 144th episode of the Terms Of Reference Podcast, I talk with Andrew Lamb of Field Ready about how their organization is disrupting logistics and supply chains currently associated with humanitarian aid by helping to solve problems at the source, in the communities affected by crisis.

Andrew is the Innovation Advisor for Field Ready. He is the former CEO of Engineers Without Borders – UK, he co-founded and serves as a Trustee of the Humanitarian Centre in Cambridge and he is a Trustee of RedR-UK. You're going to love this episode because it is packed with specific examples about how Field Ready is disrupting the delivery of humanitarian aid through design, process re-engineering, 3D printing and more.

We've had a lot of change makers on this show over the past two years - people and organizations that are redefining old systems and creating new products and processes that demand completely new ways of thinking about how we serve those in need. Across these interviews, one of the factors critical to the success of any endeavor is the ability to communicate effectively. This skill not only entails the ability to bring facts and evidence to the table, but to weave these into a narrative that conveys the "why" behind what you believe. While I'm fairly certain that most of you would agree that communication is important, it is still something that we don't properly prioritize, even thought many times it is the deciding factor for convincing someone to join your cause, retain top talent or secure funding.

If you think I'm wrong, I challenge you to spend 30 minutes at any event in any major hub of the aid and development sector this week - places like Washington, DC, New York, Geneva, Bangkok or Nairobi - and tell me if you don't witness rooms full of participants spending more time on their mobile devices than engaged in the presentation and speakers who still haven't incorporated even the most basic presentation and public speaking fundamentals. I invite you to share your stories about this challenge in the comments section on Aidpreneur.com for this podcast.

But here's the good news: my guest for the 143rd Terms of Reference Podcast is Angus Hervey. He is the co-founder of a new media company call Future Crunch. They're decidedly optimistic mission seeks to help people understand what's on the frontiers of science and technology, and what it means for human progress. You should definitely check out their website, YouTube channel, and get on their newsletter. I'm absolutely certain you'll love this conversation about new media channels and the evolution of journalism, fake news, bringing stories of change and progress to the world and what it means to embrace the hacker culture of today.

One reason that innovation has become one of those words that you just cannot escape in social impact, is the fact that the institutions that have occupied this space for the bulk of history are the anthesis of what we would consider "shiny new objects." But really, if we sit back and think about it, for many (and maybe most, or even all) of them, the rapid or constant change that we associate with innovation is actually the exact opposite of what these institutions we're built to achieve. Seriously. The public relies on public structures like governments and international organizations for setting and maintaining rules and processes that ultimately lead to a common, knowable... and stable... environment in which we can run our lives. Injecting the change associated with innovation into any system or process creates uncertainty, which is the opposite of what the "institutionalization" of something seeks to achieve. All of this is to say that, its no wonder that realizing innovation within this sector is a massive challenge - and one that fascinates me to no end.

Luckily, this is something that my guest for the 142nd Terms of Reference Podcast knows a thing or two about. Corrine Gray is an Alternative Finance Specialist in the Innovation Unit at UNHCR, where she leads efforts to engage staff and refugees in open innovation. I'm confident you're going to enjoy our conversation about how UNHCR is working to develop an 'innovation mindset' and how that ultimately makes a difference for refugees.

I invite you to pause just for a second and take a moment to think about the last time you changed your mind about something. Specifically, I'd like for you to identify something that was either very important to you or your worldview, or something that you had taken for granted, that today you have either the complete opposite or at least a very different perspective on. Got it?

Now ask yourself, what was it that made you change your mind? And, again specifically, what evidence did you unearth, or were presented with, that made the case for changing your mind? For most of us, a profound change of mind doesn't happen very often, but when it does, the effects of such a change alter lives, communities, and entire belief systems.

As a final step in this exercise, I'd like for you to think about the core beliefs you have about the work you do in the social impact sector, and what you expect that work will help achieve for people in need. Now, ask yourself, what would it take to alter those beliefs - even if it meant radically shifting the entire system for how you've expected to serve others?

I wanted to start with this exercise because in today's 140th episode of the terms of reference podcast, I'd be discussing the revolution being brought about through the practice of impact evaluation. Impact evaluation holds the promise of confirming, or refuting, the effectiveness of the practices, processes and systems we rely upon in humanitarian and development programming to help those in need.

My guest for this show, David Evans, knows a thing or two about impact evaluations. He is a Lead Economist in the Chief Economist's Office for the Africa Region of the World Bank where he coordinates impact evaluation work across agriculture, education, health, and social protection in more countries than most people will visit in their lifetimes. I know you're going to love this show as we discuss how we can design evaluations to learn more, how to make evaluation real time, and, ultimately how do you create an evaluation that will succeed - even if you're working for a small NGO.