Re-thinking the Way We Think About Social Impacts

• Posted on 22nd February 2011
• in Art Based Solutions, Community Change Management, CRM Strategy, Event Marketing, Green Business, Relationship Management, Social Capital
• by ydubel

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Take Heart - Hope for Community Change Management

People who know me are aware that I have been exploring linkages between CRM (customer relationship management) Strategy and CSR (corporate social responsibility) programs for a number of years. Mostly I have met with a good deal of frustration but I've come to far to give up now, so when I find enlightening or encouraging news it helps put the wind back in my sails. Lately my attention has been on programs to assist survivors of violence but I also remain engaged in crime prevention and reducing recidivism of ex-offenders. Recently I was introduced to Social Impact Bonds and it is definitely an encouraging step in the right direction. The paper I am going to link you to shows how the model can be applied to reducing recidivism and government spending. What is inspiring here is the financial investment model - certainly helps address parts of the problem, risk management for socially motivated investments. What they've done right....There is no doubt that employment and community support are huge issues in reducing recidivism. In addition to the model discussed in that paper, there is also a need and space for broader understanding based on open research (such as Art Based research) and event sponsorship funding models are worth considering as a less restrictive alternative. Is there an opportunity here for new approaches that tackle multiple dimensions of the problem to be explored and developed? I find that what is missing is support of innovation whereby there is space for discovery and open participation of those impacted.

One Step Forward Two Steps Back

This has brought up some interesting points to consider for me. One of the big ones was the cultural and political differences that need to be taken into consideration in adapting the model for the U.S. Unfortunately, cultures are shaped by things like policy and politics not typically regarded in this context. At the time the state had 36,000 children with at least one parent in a state prison facility. Although my small project a few years ago in North Carolina was not studied or documented in a research paper it taught me something very important about working with previously incarcerated individuals (in this case men who were non-violent offenders and fathers) - It means something to see people beyond labels associated with their biggest mistakes because it helps them to have a vision of themselves that is more than their mistakes and misdeeds. The men were presented with my idea for the program and then based on their responses to the needs assessment the program was customized to meet their needs, so they were engaged as co-creators and partners in community change. While the program was an intervention program to reduce recidivism as one goal, it was also a fatherhood initiative and so the men were engaged as FATHERS not ex-cons. After reading a study that had shown that mediation training could reduce re-offending in juveniles by 87% I wondered why this wasn't being more broadly explored, if not embraced as part of a community strategy. This alongside empowering the men, primarily non-custodial fathers, as advocates for their children was the cornerstone of the program. During the time (about 3 years) that we tracked the men we had a 90% success rate in terms of reducing recidivism. But more than that it was the greater social impacts achieved by empowering the men as fathers. Domestic violence and sexual abuse are familiar common denominators when working with challenged target populations (incarcerated, drug addicted, homeless, etc.) It was an emotional experience to get reports about the men after the program ended and learning of how they had become little league coaches for their daughter's team, becoming classroom helpers and even getting custody to rescue their child from an abusive situation (at the hands of the mother's boyfriend). The program operated as an intervention program for domestic violence, recidivism, community mental health, STD/HIV prevention, and homelessness. Working with qualified mental health professionals, certified mediation trainers, and child support enforcement to deliver programs to empower the fathers to be proactive in the confronting the situations causing the most problems in their lives. Addressing these early stress points was pivotal to help manage community change in this small sphere of attention and the experience had a powerful impact on shaping my understanding of cultural impacts, beyond the old concepts of race as defining cultural lines of demarcation....race as it is generally regarded is one component of the puzzle that has a dramatic relationship to societal norms that shape community realities and cultures. The rate of drug admissions to state prison for black men is thirteen times greater than that for white men, despite findings that blacks and whites use drugs at virtually identical rates,. (Source: Human Rights Watch) Though African- Americans comprise just over 12% of the general population, African-American men constitute 38% of the prison population. (Source: US Bureau of Justice; US Census Bureau)

The United States currently jails one in every 100 adults — the highest rate in the world. That costs one in every 15 state general fund dollars, more than $50 billion a year. And it hurts the fortunes of their children — a lot of children, given that 1 in every 28 has a parent behind bars (including one in nine black children). The Cost of Jail to America’s Working Population

In the U.S. many of our prisons are being privatized and so there are incentives for increasing the number of prisons and therefor prison populations. We have been seeing that more prisons or growth in the securities sector is is a cornerstone of economic development for some communities.

The Paradox of Prison-Based Economic Development in Rural America Whereas prison facilities were once viewed with aversion as threats to a community’s well-being, prisons today are the focus of competitive bids by rural communities desperate for economic stability. As non-metro economies deteriorated and prison populations exploded over the last two decades, rural America and prison facilities have developed a symbiotic relationship. This paper investigates whether prison-based economic development policies in rural America provide benefits that exceed their costs.

The perverse incentives of private prisons Moreover, contractors have every incentive to make themselves seem necessary. It is well-known that public prison employee unions constitute a powerful constituency for tough sentencing policies that lead to larger prison populations requiring additional prisons and personnel. The great hazard of contracting out incarceration "services" is that private firms may well turn out to be even more efficient and effective than unions in lobbying for policies that would increase prison populations. When we add to the mix the observations that America already puts a larger proportion of its population behind bars than does any other country (often for acts that ought to be legal), and that the US already spends an insane portion of national income on the largely non-productive garrison state, it is hard to see the expansion of a for-profit industry with a permanent interest in putting ever more people in cages as consistent with either efficiency or justice.

Economic Impacts of Prison Growth

The U.S. corrections system has gone through an unprecedented expansion during the last few decades, with a more than 400% jump in the prison population and a corresponding boom in prison construction. At the end of 2008, 2.3 million adults were in state, local, or federal custody, with another 5.1 million on probation or parole. Of that total, 9% were in federal custody. Globally, the United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its prisoners. Prison growth has been fueled by tough drug enforcement, stringent sentencing laws, and high rates of recidivism—the re-arrest, re-conviction, or re-incarceration of an ex-offender.

Linking CRM and CSR

Watch Attention-Art-Social Capital and Your Brand in Travel & Culture |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com CRM technology (via cloud computing see Citizen CRM 2.0) seems to be on the radar already but the link to CSR and CRM Strategy has not been so clearly defined nor even explored in terms of social innovation yet alone what Art Based Research has to offer. Consider strained government budgets are cutting social programs and these needs must be addressed to achieve community sustainability goals. Businesses are part of this community and therefor a vital part of Community Change Management. Finding ways to connect business needs for CRM Strategy and meaningful CSR programs with under-supported community needs for social/individual empowerment to explore and test solutions for ever increasingly complex situations is a dire requirement and a great opportunity. Chief among these needs is that everyone needs to be engaged in digesting the complexity of what is faced and interactive public art offers an ideal opportunity. That is not to say every program has to address everything but bridges built among those operating in a wider range of sectors which is one area where cloud computing has much to offer. How to fund this is the question.

One of the things Cultural Fusion Art as Philosophy does is connecting them to CRM Strategy (such as end user led innovations) programs that support or enhance the impact of CSR programs as a consulting niche that bridge these needs to cultivate opportunities. Cloud computing tool sets can provide the infrastructure to reduce the costs and speed up the innovation process by using art to bring research and development under one programmatic initiative or theme. Interestingly, I came to the sponsorship model because of the catch 22 of grant making where the model was declined because it was untested, but then how could it be tested without the funding to implement it as a pilot project? On the other hand those with venture capital mindsets were not open to allowing key components of the project to exist as public art that could produce products or services - instead they insisted that it be compressed into something easier for them to package as a social enterprise. The Arts Based approach is not an aside it is the very core - the heart and soul. Fortunately, as such the work moved more slowly but did not stop because of these challenges.

The Model: Cultural Fusion Art as Philosophy (co-created with Attention Architect, Ronald Wopereis) Model - a hypothetical description of a complex entity or process The Methodology: SoulFood Methodology - the branch of philosophy that analyzes the principles and procedures of inquiry in a particular discipline The Process: Source Art Process - procedure: a particular course of action intended to achieve a result

Community Change Management in Infrastructure Research and Design Cultural Fusion Art as Philosophy explores integrative and flexible infrastructures that facilitate growth as an outcome for the improved understanding and motivation to collaborate to achieve holistic solutions for the good of the individual and the community. But first we need to grasp the changing nature of this community and engage the community in the discovery process.

The event properties associated with the Cultural Fusion Art as Philosophy event series brings the points in the blog post together by a. collaborating with businesses and government as part of the community, b. collaborating with service providers in the community to explore sustainability strategies, c. collaborating with target populations like survivors of violent crimes to support healing associated with community mental health d. collaborating across sectors/communities to expand knowledge bases to develop holistic solutions.

Recently in a conversation I used rape kit processing as an example of a community problem that non-profits and their supporters could be engaged in addressing. There is significant evidence that looking at rape kit processing is an issue that spreads its tentacles to infect communities. My idea of using Project:Forgive to engaging survivors (among others) in art based programs such as I have mentioned would bring new ways of thinking about solutions that would translate into cost savings for governments not to mention what it would mean in victims spared...or assisting survivors in rebuilding their lives by contributing to solutions. In case a cost benefit analysis would help to build a case for this approach here are a few things to consider that might help put such a thing together:

http://www.importantlittlefacts.com/dna http://www.sfwar.org/facts.html 1. about one in six boys and one in three or four girls are sexually abused before turning eighteen

2. links between, rape, murder, and arson. The three often go hand in hand in hand. If there would no rapists in the world, there would be fewer murders and acts of arson. A rapist might kill the victim so she won’t talk, then commit arson to eliminate the forensic evidence of the rape and murder. There would be fewer losses to people and property if rape kits were processed promptly. Throughout America this month, several women will be raped, others killed, and buildings set on fire because of unprocessed rape kits. May 12, 2010 a 14 year-old Nebraska boy was accused of sexually violating his 4 year-old half-sister, then killing her and setting the house on fire to cover the assault.

3. June 20, 2010, an episode of CBS Closed Case Files. A man named Robert Patton of Cleveland, Ohio pled guilty to some 76 rapes. A DNA sample was taken from him in 2001 upon his release from prison. The sample was not processed for 3 years. He raped several women from the time he was released in 2001 until the sampled was finally processed in 2004. Along with the possible 250,000 to 500,000 unprocessed rate kits in America, we need to know how many untested offender samples exist in the prison system.

· multitudes of victims are being deprived of that segment of closure, · innocent people are being tried for crimes they didn’t commit, and · untold millions of police-hours are being used nationwide investigating crimes that already have an easy solution. 4. Rape cases requiring 300 to 1,000 hours of investigation and case preparation. That’s a lot of tax dollars wasted, if DNA testing could have solved the case in 100 hours or less.

Just a thought but...couldn't a programmatic approach (such as the Art Based Solutions the Cultural Fusion project is proposing) be used to package multifaceted solutions for both open government and business sectors? As this has obvious benefits to both - so would a cost benefit analysis be required to show how this type of intervention/prevention programs as Art Based research via interactive public art, offer a significant savings over spending focusing on symptoms and consequences? However, the fear I am wrangling with is that the social impact bonds model will not be used to support or really encourage innovation where a space is created to explore and develop new solutions based on shared lessons learned through experience. Rather what has historically gotten attention and support have been programs that stay close enough to the status quo to fit within what is generally understood or accepted, therefore hindering social innovation.

Tags: community change management, CRM Strategy, CSR, cultural fusion art as philosophy, impacts, innovation, programs, social, WebAntiphon CRM Strategy, Yvette Dubel