Qualitative Measures

Making the intangible Real to create success metrics

Role: Lead and Co-Facilitator

Challenge: The Nature Conservancy, Midwest Division was missing opportunities for innovation, volunteer support, and voice amplification. It was alienated from the people who knew most about the land they were conservancy for.

Midwestern division team leads expressed concern about resourcing for unclear mandates regarding Community Engagement. They were frustrated at not having a voice in leadership decisions due to a complete disconnect from daily activities and overall mission.

Methods: Extended virtual and in-person Design Sprint.

• Audit current community related materials (24 documents), sustainment practices, frameworks, and case studies

• Define value proposition, Community Engagement, and metrics for success

• Develop standardized method of measuring Community Engagement

• Create sustainment model linked to existing annual cycle

Deliverables:

• Toolkit: Community Engagement (CE) glossary, CE personas templates, CE Survey templates, CE scoring rubric

• Rubric: utilizes metrics such as number of volunteers and % of change in income from sustainable resource practices to identify CE levels within four categories aligned to sustainability

• Sustainment plan: Annual cycle with time-bound toolkit submission, Q&A sessions for CE leadership representative, and LT conversations determining resourcing decision

Results: Team understood value of Community Engagement in long-term mission. Team of evangelists fully bought in on both value of program and the team created. Excitement for their jobs was restored during a very tremulous time (layoffs announced day before day 1 of workshop). Leadership buy-in was established with multiple leadership appearances on our final day.

The team feels heard at leadership levels. The method of communication upward is established with the resourcing decisions based on rubric input is promised at annual LT meetings.