Background
Please note the
final version of this proposal:
Tracking Social Performance Indicators.
With much help from alumnus Sara Naab, here is my DFE proposal. I'd like to do this as an independent study this winter, if possible. The organization is
"Freedom From Hunger," a training organization focusing on microfinance, health and food security. They have also have a
CMS up.
Edit: I wonder how the public goods/public information work concepts map to FFH. Their mission is to build capacity in microfinance institutions. Micro loans aren't public goods. I guess you could argue that the knowledge FFH provides to institutions is a public good. ie. My using the knowledge to make my institution better doesn't stop you from using the same knowledge to make your institution better. And it's difficult to exclude people from benefiting from the knowledge ...Is that right? Knowledge is hard to fence in, and all of the recipients of loans are benefiting from the dispersal of best practices. (However, FFH is trying to make money by training people in those best practices, so there must be some barrier to using the knowledge.) If this works, then my proposed DFE fits into our Public Information Work scheme as "enhancing the internal operations of organizations that perform public work." It's an information input to public work.
What do they need?
From Sara: "Apparently, one of our stronger partners, CRECER, in Bolivia has developed a rough database system to help them track social performance indicators. We would like to perhaps learn from and build on this to create tools to help other organizations track social performance." Freedom From Hunger is partly in the business of working with partner organizations, helping them build capacity to address microfinance and poverty issues. A tool for tracking and understanding social performance indicators would be helpful for them and their partner orgs. My deliverable could either be a proposed design for an IT tool, or the tool itself.
What would I get out of it?
Again from Sara: "[You could] offer a lot in terms of helping map out the process of information flow and designing an IT tool." ... "I feel that it would be a good experience in trying to understand the details of how social performance moves from theory to practice in organizations. To determine the role of IT in assisting with that -- particularly in non-IT focused institutions." This project would give me a chance to stretch some 501 muscles in the context of a growing need for development and charitable work: measuring social performance. I would get to examine the information flow for these social performance indicators, and use that understanding to design a better system for tracking them.
Mentor?
The illustrious Sara Naab has agreed to be my mentor. She understands the SI/CIC skill set, but is in a position to help me use those skills in a new and relevant space. Freedom From Hunger's evaluation specialist would provide domain-specific knowledge about social performance indicators.
Comments