Fear factor - why the language of 'measurement and evaluation' scares the people it can help the most
It’s very difficult to make someone believe something if their job depends on them not believing it
The language of measurement and evaluation alienates those working in areas of social value. Often the people on the ground are volunteers or people working in the care profession. Their vocation is to help people there is emotion and pride in that work. It is human, real life and about care.
To start to talk about data collection, measurement and economics is cold, reductive and clinical. Everything in their gut says NO, NO, NO. Plus, data and surveys can bore or scare people, they are bombarded with marketing and think it’s all a bit of a con.
But most of all they may be scared - they are emotionally invested in what they do. If they’re volunteers they will feel good about themselves and you threaten that. If they are paid to provide the service then evaluation brings the threat of failure - what if it doesn’t work - they lose their job?
From our side this is a huge frustration - our objective is to try to highlight the value of what good people do and produce the sort of evidence that will make sure their project is better funded.
Talk to the audience in a language they can engage with and makes clear the benefits to them.
The basics of any communication is to listen to and understand your audience. What do they need and want to hear? Not what do you have to say.
The whole sector of social value, social impact is framed to appeal to a top-down funding model of policy and grant funders. The result is that the quality of evidence is actually often quite poor - but social value reports are full of the right language, jargon and references to get away with it. They speak to the audience of policy holders.
To improve the quality of the evidence we all need to take the time to understand how it works on the ground. What do the people delivering want in order to be engaged and motivated to collect the evidence we all need?
We need to change the language and re-frame the whole thing
From ‘let’s evaluate your project’ to ‘let’s show everyone the difference you make to people’s lives’.
From ‘we need to know what works’ to ‘let’s ask the people you work with how they feel’.
From ‘we need to do a survey’ to ‘do you want to show more people the evidence that what you do improves lives?’.
From ‘we can tell you whether what you are doing is working’ to ‘lets give a voice to the people you help and use that to get more funding’.
This will take time but at State of Life it’s the last piece of a jigsaw. We’ve developed the methodology and technology to make quality evidence practical and affordable. We’ve collected data from people on probation, young people at risk of homelessness and people in villages in Africa.
We, and others, have a good product. But now it’s the marketing and communications arm that needs to be improved….how do we use the right words, pictures, persuasion to convince the people it can help the most.