The Accord Research Alliance Podcast

The ARA Steering Committee met to debrief their 2023 ARA Intensive on Spiritual Metrics. The team discusses their key takeaways and reflections of the day.

Dr. Jayakumar Christian, author of "God of the Empty-handed: Poverty, Power, and the Kingdom of God" was the keynote speaker of the 2022 Accord Research Alliance Intensive. This podcast is a recording of his talk, with an introduction from Dr. David Bronkema.

Dr. Drew Hart, author, activist and professor of theology and the Bible at Messiah University and Rodney Green, Senior Manager of Monitoring and Evaluation at Compassion International, have a conversation about the theological foundation to resist perpetuating colonial legacies in the data journey. One framework introduced is “decolonization”, a term that refers to approaches and methodologies of acquiring and leveraging data in a way that better honors and shares power with communities on whom these limits have been placed and/or that have been historically oppressed, enables them to control their information and use data to tell their own story, and that helps dismantle mutually dehumanizing colonial paradigms and practices that have affected their history and current realities. As the conversation is only an introduction, alternative frameworks working towards a similar aim of greater love and justice for those marginalized are not discussed, though we hope the conversation can spark helpful steps to engage in deeper learning and strengthening humanizing and liberating practices around data.

To learn more about Dr. Drew Hart, his books, and his podcast “Inverse”, visit: https://drewgihart.com/ and https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inverse-podcast/id1358332600

Emilie Jackson joins the podcast to talk with Nathan Mallonee about the listening work HOPE International does in their microfinance institutions. Their listening practice is geared toward helping them design new microfinance products and services for their clients. Emilie also goes into depth about one particular tool they use for quicker feedback—the Net Promoter Score—and how they modified it for clients in the countries they work in.

For more information about HOPE International, visit www.hopeinternational.org.

To find out more about the Accord Research Alliance, and to register for the 2022 OneAccord Forum, visit www.accordnetwork.org.

Emilie's book recommendation is: Ghosts in the Schoolyard by Eve L. Ewing. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo27506579.html

To find out more about Emilie's work at HOPE, you can contact her at [email protected].

Rhett Bailey and Nathan Mallonee from Living Water International share their experience applying rapid testing and experimentation to inform the organization’s strategy development process. The approach — based in design thinking — produced data insights and fostered a discernment process to inform a strategic direction for an organization working in 17 countries. The conversation covers the basics of the approach, how the implementation of the rapid testing was managed, and lessons learned along the way.

Notes:

Register for the Accord Research Alliance annual intensive in October 2022: https://accordnetwork.org/oneaccord-2022/

Playing to Win Methodology: https://hbr.org/books/playing-to-win

Testing Business Ideas: https://www.strategyzer.com/books/testing-business-ideas-david-j-bland

Rodney Green interviews Allan Kakinda, Senior Manager of Innovation and M&E at Compassion International, about integrating and utilizing different types of evidence in M&E design –generating unique insights for decision-making.

Lean Impact by Ann Mei Chang is mentioned, with a helpful review here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/book-review-lean-impact-ann-mei-chang-thoughts-science-brown/

Do More Be More podcast is here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1gGDrmGybvBsoYUdQoXvIs

To connect with Allan, please visit his Linkedin and Twitter page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akakinda/

https://twitter.com/alkakinda

This episode is the conversation with Pete Howard, Leadership Consultant with Christian Relief, Development and Advocacy organization hosted by Dr. Subodh Kumar, Chief Data Officer with World Vision International. This conversation touches upon the three theological virtues of Beauty, Goodness and Truth and its importance to Christian Relief, Development and Advocacy organization. In this broken world, through our M&E work we are witness through our relationships and work of God’s beauty, goodness and truth.

Lincoln Lau is back on the podcast! Nathan Mallonee interviews Lincoln, who is the director of research at International Care Ministries (ICM) in the Philippines.

ICM has been conducting different RCTs in partnership with Innovations for Poverty Action, and Lincoln comes back to talk to us since they published the results of their first RCT and how they’re using RCTs today.

To find out more about ICM, visit: https://www.caremin.com

Book recommendation: Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Nathan Mallonee interviews Nell Becker Sweeden and Zekarias Asfaw from Nazarene Compassionate Ministries (NCM) about their global COVID-19 response and a recent evaluation they conducted.

For more information about NCM, you can visit: https://www.ncm.org

To register for the upcoming OneAccord forum on Oct 19-21, visit: https://accordnetwork.org

Rodney Green talks with Dr. Subodh Kumar, Chief Data Officer from World Vision International, about how to view and utilize data through a Jesus-centered way, or in other words, from a Kingdom perspective, where data is a way to listen to and meet with God as revealed in Jesus.

Contact Subodh with questions at: [email protected] or https://www.linkedin.com/in/subodh-kumar-ph-d-74409616/

Toward Laying the Foundation for Christ-Centered Monitoring and Evaluation: https://crdajournal.org/index.php/crda/article/view/417