 Welcome to today's webinar, Measuring Social Impact for Meaningful Storytelling. So the question is like how do nonprofits and makers of public good apps amplify and measure social impact? Often we found there's a gap between the day-to-day implementation of technology and on-the-ground programs with the visionary storytelling that engages funders and that gets the larger community involved. Today we're joined by Exigee, a social impact technology organization and the CROP organization, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing recidivism and supporting reentry. Today you're going to learn how to translate a theory of change into actionable metrics, how to navigate the biggest challenges and implementation of technology, and ways to grow your capacity to tell meaningful stories of impact. We'll share CROP's evolution from having a theory of change all the way to sharing its impact with local government leaders. This is going to be a candid conversation with actionable steps for implementers at nonprofits, that's you, the program managers, partnership builders, software developers, and the folks who lead, monitor, and evaluate programs. My name is Billy Pickett and today I'll be your event host for some of you who haven't been here before. We're TechSoup and this is a public good app house event at TechSoup. We believe that technology can serve as an enabler that amplifies the impact of civil society organizations and strengthens the resilience of local communities. The public good technology speakers today will provide what that looks like in action. I want to welcome our guest facilitator Emily Edwards is a product manager at Exigee. Emily joined Exigee after nearly a decade in social finance and impact investing where she built products. For startups and venture capital investors alike, she's passionate about finding efficient scalable ways to solve social and environmental problems through public private partnerships, innovative research, and accessible product builds. I'm going to turn it over to our guest expert to tell you more. My name is Emily Edwards. I'm a product manager at Exigee. We build digital design solutions, partner with social impact organizations. Jason, would you mind introducing yourself and Crop Organization? Thank you for kicking us off. Well, Jason Bryant, once again, director programs for the Crop Organization. We are a nonprofit based out of Oakland, California. I myself have been working with the Crop Organization for approximately 13 years, but I've only been paid for three because the first 10 years I was incarcerated. I am an approximate leader who brings 20 years of lived experience in the criminal justice system in California to this work. A little bit of the origin story, myself and my co-defendant made a terrible choice in 1999, brought a lot of harm to our community and were sentenced to life in prison as a result. About 10 years into our sentences, my co-defendant and I reconnected. He and his father had founded the Crop Organization initially as a way to bridge the anti-social race-based politics inside of prison and introduce music equipment, sporting equipment because he had a very sound principle that it's hard to hate someone that you play basketball with or are in a band with. Together we began working together around 2010. We surrounded ourselves with other proximate leaders who wanted to not only transform our lives, but produce positive programs for people in the community and we had some great results as far as personal leadership training, established a scholarship and as a result of all this, both myself and my co-defendant were ordered to be immediately released by the governor of California in March of 2020. We came out and we identified a lot of the barriers in reentry, the siloed nature of reentry programs and the five of us, former lifers, life-term inmates, sat around a table and said, what would a reentry program look like from a holistic standpoint? What would really serve people coming out of incarceration in a way that would equip them to thrive in the community? And by summer of 2021, after a lot of hard work, hard thinking and hard conversations with legislatures, we found out that we would be partnering with the state of California for three years to the $28.5 million for a reimagined reentry program, which I'm sure we'll get into more. But that's the synopsis of the origin and where we are today. Thank you, Jason. We're going to get a lot more into your story as well. Anastasia, would you like to introduce yourself and a little bit about CROP and why this work is important in the grander scheme things? Absolutely. Good morning, everyone. Anastasia Malolan, I use she, her pronouns. I'm the deputy director with CROP, which stands for Creating Restorative Opportunities in Program. Our mission as an organization is to reimagine reentry through a holistic human-centered approach to advocacy, housing, and skill development for the future of work. Much of the work that we do is centered on a people-first model, really trying to humanize individuals despite their histories and the choices they've made in their path. Our work is important on multiple levels. At the macro level, as a country, we spend much, we spend so many resources and so much money on mass incarceration and rehabilitation. I think the U.S. spent something like $81 billion just on mass incarceration alone. And we know that, at least in the state of California, the system in many ways is not working in a way to rehabilitate and reintroduce people into the community. At the meadow level, we also believe that our work is important because it has ripple effects for communities and families that will sustain not just today but in the future. At the micro level, our work is important because we believe in people. We specifically believe that people are worthy of more, including second chances, including opportunities, and that people have the ability to transform or make choices for new attitudes, new perspectives, and new ways of being no matter where they've been. Thank you, Anastasia. And our final panelist, Andrew, would you like to give a quick introduction to your work with Crop and some of the work you do with Metrics specifically? Yeah, thanks, Emily. Good morning, everybody. Nice to be here. My name's Andrew Lopez. I've been working in the nonprofit sector for about 16 years now. And I've been with Venture Leadership Collective as a consultant for the last five or so. Some of the work that we do is typically through interim leadership type of roles and targeted like codification and implementation types of efforts, including working with nonprofits across the country. One of the things that we did get to do with profit is actually develop and support them in developing their theory of change. And why I really feel this work was important and what really drives me as a part of that process and other things that I get to do with other agencies is that unlike for-profit organizations whose money metric is really around like revenue or profits that they're generating for nonprofits, it's really around the outcomes and the impact that we're able to show with the clients that we are serving. And so a lot of times it comes down to really being accountable to ourselves and to the clients that we're serving as well as being as efficient as we can within the work that we're doing and asking ourselves questions around, are we holding ourselves accountable to the target clients that we're hoping to have impact with? Are we holding them accountable as well? And assuming so, are we actually operating as efficiently as we really want to and should be to be able to achieve the impacts that we want to achieve? And so that's really the genesis of what the theory of change is hoping to achieve with the organization. It's a lot of work and takes a lot of time to get to where we want to get to, which I'm sure we'll go into a little bit further. But that's really what this work really helps drive me. Ultimately nonprofits are working within a set of limited resources. And so ensuring that we're really intentional with the work that we are putting out there I think is super important if we're hoping to achieve the impact that we want to achieve. But very nice to meet you all and thank you for inviting me today. Great. Thank you, Andrew. And we'll get into, I heard a lot of different themes about how we have these really big ideas, these really important meaningful goals. And yeah, we still have to tell that story at the end of the day. So that's what we really want to try and ground in today a little bit. So thank you guys so much for sharing just your introductions. I'm going to ask a few leading questions. But as y'all know, you are welcome to tag in if you have something you want to add. Feel free to keep this a little open for the panelists just to make sure we get at every question really holistically. I'm going to start with Anastasia. Could you tell us a little bit about the role metrics play? We've talked a lot about working with the legislature and funding as not just a one-off thing, but as a multi-year kind of large-scale approach. So could you tell us a little bit more about the role impact metrics play or just metrics in general play with your external storytelling? Sure. And it's a great question. I think as we approach this work, as Jason mentioned previously, being awarded, having the origin story of CROP really started from a place of human-centered experience and what the team was experiencing while serving time together. It has since transformed into really being focused on human-centered people-first approach. And because of all the support that we've gotten from the state, from funders, et cetera, what we're really focused on is data backed decision making. And as we approach much of our stakeholders, which include legislators, which include employers, many people are really drawn into CROP because of our story, because of how we center approximate leadership, how we center our values as an organization. And as we know, human experience is one piece of data that actually tells a much larger story. And so as we've considered program specifically and also the organization, building out the organization and the capacity of the organization, the way in which we really leverage impact metrics is through storytelling is by humanizing the work, humanizing the stories of our participants, humanizing the stories of those that our leadership team has done, time with humanizing the stories of their own. At the end of the day, there are numbers on a page or metrics that you could read out. And behind those numbers are the things that we care about, which really are the people. And I think Jason will get into this a little bit later as well as he talked a little bit about program. But I think one of the things that our Tarah lawyer, our wonderful executive director has been doing recently is really engaging in conversation. We've had a lot of support from the state of California, as far as legislative advocacy work. And one of the things that she's been doing more recently is really engaging with stakeholders about how much does California really spend overall on rehabilitation programs for people who are directly purling and whether or not we can measure accurately if that money is being spent. So recently, there was an article that was published by CalMatters that just outlines how the state really is collecting data in inaccurate ways where metrics don't really exist to share whether programs about rehabilitation are successful or effective. And so one of the efforts that crop is leading actually is to help one implement this pilot program that I will get into a little bit later, but also really think about how do we create a pool of consistent and accurate data for resources that are being spent at the state level. And so as it ties into some of the legislative work that we're doing, or really trying to leverage both the metrics are very important and the stories behind those metrics also equally as important as we really consider how to communicate with legislators in the state that these resources are important. The other stakeholders that we're often finding aren't either asking about or that we're communicating with around impact metrics are employers or companies that we're partnering with. And again, I think the approach that we've used as an organization that really is rooted in our value is how do we humanize our metrics? How do we humanize how we talk about impact so that it's not just a number or a percentage or a description on a page and rather it really is you can have the data really come to life through the stories of our participants of our team etc. The other piece in which we use data that I just want to highlight too and I'll talk a little bit about later is as an organization really thinking about I think we often think about data and impact metrics specifically related to storytelling about program itself. But one of the things that I think crop was really trying to uplift is how do we think about creating data centered a data centered culture at the organization, not just about programs but about organization particularly about reentry, particularly about nonprofit practices in the reentry space. And so really focusing on like those metrics and how we measure all of the other things behind the scenes that people don't see as a part of the story of crap and the story of the work that we're doing because we know how foundational that is to the program. And then the other thing that I also just want to highlight is in all of this, one of the things that we're really focused on is participant experience and what how that in particular is impacting and driving both metrics and in itself serves as a metric in itself, because often especially in the reentry space, both people at the table who may not have the same proximate leadership or same values alignment as those implementing this quote unquote solutions or the programs. And we also know that driving driving solutions from a place of metrics around what success looks like for participants themselves leads to the longevity of our successful organization of the program. Definitely. Thank you, Anastasia. I think you mentioning not only like humanizing what metrics look like but how those metrics can help inform the experience of the people participating. I think Chesa that's a great lead into a question I had for you about how programming is shaped by metrics or how your experience building this program has been either has been shaped or will be shaped to the future by metrics. Tell us a little bit about program building. Okay. Let me start by confessing that the term metrics and measurements is very new to me. Three years, almost three and a half years now that I've been free and when we began implementing programs inside what we were really looking for was results. And I think there's it's synonym maybe or it's definitely useful to establish metrics when you're working to achieve results. But what we knew inside was that there were people not inmates, not prisoners. There were people who wanted to transform their lives and really wanted to be a part of something good. I think that might be a unifying thing for most human beings. Like most people want to be a part of something good. Even if they make poor choices, when there's an opportunity to be engaged in something that's good and productive and adding value to their lives and others, like most people want to be a part of that. So that was a central theme for us when we began working together inside because initially our goal was to actually transform the culture of prison itself to break up a lot of the race based politics, the gang politics and help people get in alignment with what they say is most important in their lives because you could go to any prison in any country and you can ask them the most quote unquote criminal person. What's the most important thing in your life? And the answer is typically not going to be like my gang or my status. It's going to be things like my freedom, my family, perhaps God, depending on their religious beliefs. And our work was really to help people get in alignment with that. But we also knew that you can lead a proverbial horse to water but you can't make them drink. So while having the space and the wherewithal to create opportunities for people to participate, we had to also know that it was only for the people who really wanted it. So as we transitioned into the community, the first conversations we had were around a dining room table with five formerly incarcerated lifers whose only real experience in life was 110 years of combined incarceration. So we had a lot of groups and conversations with people inside. We had our own experience of what it meant to be deemed by society largely as castaways, as second class citizens, as people who had nothing coming. And when we identified the serious gaps in reentry, which really in many regards is an extension of the prison system, which is in our country a version of a punishment model. You make a poor choice. You need to be punished and you got nothing coming. It continues in the reentry system. There's a lot of siloed services that don't work very well. They're not integrated. They're not cohesive and they're really set up, in my opinion, to serve people in successful reentry. So we sat around this table and said, what would it look like from our perspective? From our lived experience, what would it look like to really feel supported when you come home? What would a wraparound turnkey reentry program look like? And there were four things we know. We knew it started with the mindset because prison is so saturated, both from the system itself and also the people who live there with a very negative and limiting set of beliefs, that people need space and you can press that. They needed a space and a program to examine the limiting beliefs that they had decided was true while incarcerated and consider new possibilities for their future. Now, that's not something that's easily measurable. So we weren't thinking about measurement, but we did have our experience of people who wanted something new. We came across them for many years while walking the laps inside of a prison yard of individuals who were turning their lives in a new direction and looking for support through conversations. So we knew that was where we wanted to start. And the reason why we lean so heavily on one of our company values is proximity is because we believe that people who are closest to the pain points typically have good insights and solutions to help resolve them. So we knew it started there. And then we sat around and we said, what else do you need? We know that the mindset has to be right. People need to understand that they want something different and it's going to be up to them to choose it. If it's meant to be, it's up to me. But what else? Okay, the most special feature of my cell phone in 1999, 1999 when I went to prison, I had an okia was that the face would pop off and I could change the face. People who are incarcerated are really severed from technological advances, which are changing every day. So we knew that people coming out of incarceration needed some type of digital literacy skill. And we believe that if we found the right vendor or the right partner that they could help people rapidly catch up to what's happening, how to use their phone, how to send an email, things of that nature, things that people in the workforce typically take for granted. But most people are not sending emails. So people coming out of incarceration don't. We knew we needed to provide that training. We also knew that we needed to provide them with some sense on how to manage their money. Because another thing in your award of the state is you're not paying for, you're not paying for the water. You're not paying for the food. It's all taken care of for you. So we knew that people needed some type of financial wellness as well. And then we said, okay, so what's next? Just from our experience, what do we know that people need? So typically the jobs inside of prison are usually like gig economy, pushing brooms, serving food. And there's not a lot of opportunities for like family sustaining wages. So we said, okay, so how do we help people get into the future of work, which is tech? And we said, well, there's some transferable skills. So a lot of people who are incarcerated have artistic talents, they're good talkers. So we can maybe explore something in UX design and sales. So it was really finding pathways to help people who had like these inherent skills and translate them into the tech world. So we said, okay, so what else? What else is needed? So we can help them get their mind because of digital literacy, financial wellness, and perhaps get them some upskilling and transferable skills in tech, or that the employers themselves, right? So there's this cultural stigma about formerly incarcerated people that they can't be trusted, that they're smart, that they got nothing coming. So maybe they need to be talked with as well and be educated about the value of what we call fair chance talent, that these are individuals who, yes, they made poor choices however many years ago, but they've turned the corner and they have an incredible level of resilience and grit and loyalty that can add incredible value to your organizations. Okay, so we need to have those conversations. And then of course, the last thing is it's hard to get anything done if you don't have a roof over your head, there's a huge housing crisis in this nation. And the majority of people are in some ways just as impacted. So we knew that we had to have a program that captured people coming from incarceration, which is a very subhuman way to live in a six by nine with another human being, right concrete cage. And we wanted to capture them in a place of dignity, where they were treated with dignity, respect, they had their own space to decompress the prison experience and begin learning the skills that were necessary to enter into a career. And when we're talking about all this, we weren't really thinking about measurement and metrics, we were thinking about results. And the resource that we had was 10 years of working together inside a prison, having thoughtful conversations with individuals about what they wanted for their future and contrasting that against what they had been getting so far. What have the results been telling you so far when you're saying that these things such as freedom, such as reunification with family are important to you. And then some madness happens on the yard and you're running to it. Is that really what's most important to you? And through those conversations, we helped create a lot of breakthroughs. We served over 1000 individuals inside close to 300 college students who came in for personal leadership trainings. And the results were that this conversation was right, and that people really wanted something knew they wanted to be a part of something good. So that translated into our reentry program. And so far, I would say the metrics are showing that we've done a really good job of identifying people who really want to transform their lives. And the level of appreciation is in the bounds, typically, people coming out of incarceration are used to this level of support. So the gratitude that I've seen demonstrated in both our program in Oakland and Los Angeles is unparalleled to anything I've experienced. Seeing people really invest in their success is a really a new experience, which is in some way sad and telling of how society has regarded formerly incarcerated people until now. Yeah, Jason, thank you so much for sharing. There are a ton of questions, by the way, coming in that I would love each of the panels just to kind of keep in the back of your mind. We'll transition to questions in a minute, but there are some good overlapping themes coming in. And if you feel like you want to respond over text, Anastasia, Andrew, Jason, please feel free to. Meg, give Andrew an opportunity to answer a quick question, and then we will switch over to questions. So also for everyone who is listening in, you can upvote some of these questions. If there are some things that really stand out, please feel free. And if there are questions that feel like maybe can't get answered to, we will be sharing everyone's contact information afterwards as well. So we can follow up there. Andrew, Jason has said a lot of stuff in his programs. There's a lot of things going on and your role has been to translate that a little bit, to bring some of those big ideas and big goals into some actionable. There's a question here about what do we mean when we say metrics? What does some of these terms actually mean? So would you give us a little insight into maybe some of the challenges or some of the processes that you've taken to get us from big idea around a dinner table to the work you're doing now? Yeah. And Jason's always articulate and inspiring, and I get to talk about data raises and stuff. So thanks, Jason. I think just building off of what he's saying, I think that the, I mentioned that the area of change process that we got to go through with Crop nearly two years ago now, all of that's really doing, he's putting some more definition and structure and alignment around a lot of the experiences that Jason is speaking to. And so I'm actually going to just follow up on that. I'm going to throw props theory of change statement into the chat there just so people can see it. And I'll read it really quickly. But if justice involved people are successfully prepared and placed in technology for knowledge-based jobs for the future of work, then people with conviction records will be valued catalysts for increased economic prosperity and community healing. I throw that in there only because that's really our kind of guiding statement. Everything that we're now doing and trying to build out around metrics, around outcomes, around really proving the impact that Crop is having is really speaking back to that and trying to prove or disprove that ultimately at the end of the day, Crop's really working toward being a continuous learning organization really using data in different ways so that we can see if this theory that we've put on paper is something that's really true or if there's, if it's not quite true, what are the adjustments that we need to make to really be able to get us to where we want to be with that impact. In terms of the theory of change process overall, that's really been our guiding star to really support the build out of what those metrics are and really just cementing what that data is and should be that we should be capturing and reporting on and trying to better tell the stories of the fellows that we're working with. In terms of implementation of that type of thing, that's really where the devil in the details is. So that's the kind of biggest hurdle next once you define that vision is that implementation piece. So I know early on in my time getting to work with Jason and really sitting down and saying, okay, these are the outcomes that you're saying you want to achieve. What are some other indicators? What are some other metrics that we feel like we want to capture that are really going to show that evidence of kind of progress toward the outcomes that we're hoping to get to? And that takes time. It takes time to really make sure that we are clear on definitions there that staff are aligned and understand what those metrics are. And ultimately that we're building the muscle behind how it is that we're pulling data, entering data into a database system that we're still in currently building a lot of steps to that. But that's been ultimately that statement has been our guiding principle around what it is that we're hoping to prove over time. And then lastly, I'll just say in a longer term perspective, maintaining that alignment, right? So this is not just a programmatic effort, right? This is something that if we're going to maintain and always build in like buy in with staff, this is going to be something that has to be built in through our onboarding efforts, through onboarding, ongoing training, like data literacy efforts with staff. It's truly not just like a now we implement it and now we're done type of thing. It is a continuously learning effort that crop is still building the muscle around certainly and takes time to get to. But I think that the vision and the structure is there to really help the organization go in the right direction. Andrew, there is a question in here that I think overlaps with this is for Jason and Anastasia and Andrew, but really focused on before transition to questions. Some of the, I don't want to call them pitfalls, but some of the difficulties or lessons learned in trying to translate a lot of this. I see a lot of the questions revolve around strategies for reporting, strategies for collection. What are some of the things to avoid? What do you do if you don't have metrics set out before you even start putting your programs together? But an overall question, I think for folks on the college is like, what are some of the big lessons learned trying to translate this big idea into some metrics? What is like a takeaway or two that you would have for other folks? And then we'll transition to some of these bigger questions as well. Andrew, I don't know if you want to start with that one, some of the challenges. Yeah, I think some lessons learned for me. I've gotten to serve in kind of the data lead slash accountability role at a few different organizations before taking on more of a consulting role. But I think something that wanted to highlight are to try to simplify where you can. I know that we've talked a little bit with Jason and his team around, we can make a bunch of reports, but let's be really specific and clear with staff around which reports are really speaking to them so that they can really tell how the data affects them and how it improves their work and how it really speaks to the clients and how they're serving their client. And so I think that's always been a benefit for me to keep an eye on dedicating time to data discussions separately. Some maybe other meetings, I think have been a learning. I'm working with another organization at the moment who we just set up like a bi-monthly, this data team check-in. So we have a data team that's been established that really focuses on, okay, what are we learning from our data? What are some maybe adjustments that we need to make and really just have time set aside that's not the last 10 minutes of a kind of add-on to a meeting, but really time set aside just to data and really be again more intentional with that effort. I'll also speak a little bit to trying to celebrate data. I've implemented systems in the past where as simple as user of the month with cards or highlighting staff in staff meetings that are really using data or asking questions or even bringing things to the table that maybe we hadn't thought about before. So trying to encourage and celebrate things like that are simple steps that you can start to change the culture around if it has been a struggle. Had your defining metrics, they're not always going to be perfect right off the bat, but that's the point of the process is to try to learn from that data and try to make adjustments based off of what you're seeing. So those would be a few things. I also, also out there that we are in a people serving business, right? So there's going to be challenges that kind of naturally occur because you're working with people but we're not producing widgets, right? We're trying to produce outcomes in human beings and so there's always going to be different things that come up and to keep that in mind, but those would be a few things all dropped. I'm sure Jason or Anastasia have some other thoughts. Have we distracted you by being able to answer questions in the chat? I'm going to chat this whole time. I can see you. I can see you answering these big questions at the time. I do think that you answered that. I'll pull back out to chat about live a little bit, but I am curious just in your lessons learned, wouldn't do again, would do again, just a big takeaway or two. In terms of programming? In terms of this translation issue, moving from big idea to now we need to actually make sure that these numbers are in. Oh my goodness, the biggest lesson. Make sure you got the right people on the bus. So I think that goes everything from everything to like how we're selecting our participants to like the services we're providing. There was definitely a temptation. There's an experience of urgency. So when you're awarded a significant amount of money from the state of California and you're approximately led organizations, we got to get this right, but we also have to get things moving. So the biggest takeaway, make sure you got the right make sure you got the right people on the bus and that they're in the right seats, right? Because there's been a lot of iterations and a lot of things that have needed to shift because it's also new change management, having a good system of change management, because especially still technically like startup ish, like building things as they go and understanding like the importance of maintaining culture, which really started inside of prison as far as culture, as far as the culture of like lifters, not leaders, people, first mentality while expanding a team and things changing every. So just that's the biggest takeaway for me, making sure you got the right people on the bus. And we've done some great work and some flexible work in making the necessary adjustments. We're getting ready to onboard our second cohort in both Los Angeles and Oakland. It will be refining like our intake process, but that's the one that stands out for me more than anything else. Yeah. Cool. Anastasia would love to hear your big takeaway thoughts before we change over to Q&A. Okay. My wife, I have been cutting out. So hopefully it does not can say modestly. Great. I think a few takeaways. One is something that I had mentioned previously just about the importance of data and metrics having to be central to the organization and not just program. I'm really thinking about how to build a culture of data and accountability across the team, across an organization, though that when data is being or metrics are being collected, it's not just focused on the behaviors and the mindset around it isn't just isolated to a program that's being running or being run or an initiative that's being implemented. It's really about how the organization relates to the purpose behind data, how it drives the work, how it drives the theory of change. I think one other takeaway, just thinking about the reentry system as a whole. I think the team really recognized how skewed the data was and I spoke to this a little bit earlier, but at the macro level, how skewed the data was and how difficult it was to project what metrics really needed to be measured and where and how we quantify areas of success. And so our model as a holistic model, our pilot program really offers us an opportunity to measure portions of reentry services and reentry support under one umbrella. But I think a challenge in that is that there's building in opportunities to reflect on is the data and the metrics or the metrics and the data that we have set out to collect, both lending itself to our theory of change as Andrew is mentioning and also filling the gap of data that might already be skewed or gaps that exist. I think building in that time, both one of the takeaways being how do you constantly align to those data points and your theory of change and twofold, how do you build in the time to reflect on that, to ensure maybe the data points are correct or are trending in the right, in the direction that you want to measure or aligned in that and maybe the tools in which you're collecting them are not the right mechanism. So I think thinking about how do we build in time for reflection and learning and being able to reimplement that is a unique challenge for us right now because of everything Jason is mentioning about us launching and also building organizational capacity while also in what we would consider growth phase for a nonprofit, but understanding the importance of being able to really make that time and build with intention. Yeah. Yeah, Anastasia, there's a question in here about how do we reconcile desired impact that funders expects and the impacts that you want to see if those two things aren't aligned. Do you have maybe an example of that or an instance where the two you could make a line or work towards so the balance between external expectations and internal impacts? Sure. I think it's a great question and I think it's one that I sure what Andrew also had may have some thoughts about this. And I think it's one that often nonprofits are wrestling with and teams are wrestling with. I think for me and for our team, two things, two strategies really jump to mind. One is really having the team understand the value and the purpose of data because in thinking about funder relationships and in thinking about funding sources and also going back to this idea of like organizational culture around data and understanding purpose behind metric. The more that the team can help translate what they're seeing on the ground to why it matters and the stories behind it, the more that comes across in the reporting, the more that comes across in the data that's being pulled, the sales force reports and in the funder conversations and in the partner conversations. And so maybe hopefully I didn't lose sound completely. Staping headphones. And having the team really be grounded in the purpose, both of the metrics and the data and the reporting requirements of the funder and having conversation about how you show like maybe it isn't necessarily that the reporting metrics that we may be beholden to from funders share the same storyline of the data and metrics that we're trying to measure. But if there are ways to have invite the team into conversations about how you build that bridge or how you build that connection or build that storyline, I think that's one strategy. The other strategy that I think crop does very well is actually invite funders into those conversations about what are the metrics? Why are we choosing these metrics? What is the purpose behind some of the reporting requests that they're actually giving and what we have found and maybe this this is anecdotal I think for the organization so may not be true across the sector but we what we have found is actually at many of our funders whether that's government agencies or private philanthropy or individual donors care a lot about the stories behind the data and are welcoming to conversations with us about why we're measuring the things we are. What are you know our experience or how we relate to the things that they're asking of us because ultimately we're aligned in the same thing. We want to demonstrate the opportunity for the field. We want to further the landscape and we want to show that things work or that gaps exist right and so inviting funders or how whatever and whatever way that looks like into those conversations too I actually think has been a very welcomed opportunity for our team. Funders are open to the conversation. Let's go. Excellent. I am going to jump back over to Andrew to talk a little bit more just about kind of nuts and bolts process for what data collection looks like and maybe touching on a little bit about what of those metrics are publicly important and which are more for internal monitoring and evaluation at a stage if you want to jump into I know you have thoughts on that but Andrew do you want to just talk there's a lot of questions in here about process and just what does it look like any advice on that. I think broadly too again I think the process that was in need was a little bit further definition right I think we had semantic total stories and understand where we wanted to go what we hopefully want to do achieve but I think more of the detail around what the metrics ultimately were but also how we plan to capture them where we're going to capture them in a Google spreadsheet versus like application form versus in the directly into the database being very specific with the actual how behind the capture I think was an important step and then in terms of which to report internally versus externally Anastasia may be able to speak a little bit more to that but I think a big focus initially was really building some of those accountability structures internally so as a simple example one of the things we tried to push for initially was just sometime like rustly like on time data entry accountability reports to see okay who's actually getting into the database because it's brand new for everybody in the organization let's see something around who's actually logging in who's actually putting in entries so that we can actually see is our data up to date at the really kind of base starting point and even getting some initial report backs on okay this person's logging in all the time this person not at all but they are in the same role and figuring out okay what's what are we learning from this sort of some of those questions we can answer I think the accountability needs to be there before any of the kind of learnings from the data can really come so I guess I'll continue to highlight that as a first step and then maybe Anastasia can speak a little bit more to what we might produce externally versus internally yeah I appreciate that Andrew I think when it comes to internal metrics and data the way in which we're really thinking about how we're collecting things and then also how we're the use of it or the utility or function of it for us is really to inform program the pausing of the learning and the iteration of what we're doing is really at this for us at this stage it's really important and Jason spoke to this quite a bit but really being able to there's a lot of things that we're learning right now and although that when we hear like measurement and metrics we often think as I've mentioned before about the larger program impact the one of the ways that we're really trying to shift to the organization shift how we think about it is how do we use just the the information data is coming to us all the time right and whether that's anecdotal anecdotal data about participants in the program and how they're relating to our program and how they're relating to our team all of that is data for us internally that we are building a culture and a muscle around implementing to better or better serve our our participants and our team and also to refine our program for long-term sustainability so I think much of that is informed both by how we the day-to-day but and also some of what Andrew and Jason have already spoken to about some of the metrics so when we see the numbers on paper it's not just okay that now this number of fellows had an attendance rate of 90% or higher it is okay what is the curiosity around that 10% okay what can we do to inform how we move forward in the next iteration of program and in the next iteration of team training and in the next iteration of organizational like pulse survey to understand what are the root causes of that metric and how do we then improve or iterate and then externally I think that there are there are metrics that whether that's through our state grant or our funders or et cetera through many conversations we have aligned on specific metrics that we share externally and at this I think at this point in where we are in launching our pilot program there are much of the data and metrics that we are sharing are about the again like the humanizing the storytelling of our participants and the experiences that they're having both quantifiably but also qualitatively right because as we're thinking about the umbrella of data as Jason had mentioned previously like we're really measuring impact when we're thinking about our larger buckets if you will around family sustaining wages long-term housing and recidivism rates and employment rates right but within that those are the larger buckets but within that are the the metrics or the the qualitative stories about what is what was the experience for a fellow moving on to our campus what are the supportive services that they're utilizing and finding necessary and helpful upon release so there there are ways that I think as an organization externally we present some of the data that relate to our larger what we would consider our larger buckets of metrics and tie those to some of the day-to-day more like program operational pieces thank you there are so many good and very specific questions in the chat that I don't think we're going to have two minutes to get into so what I'm going to ask crop is if there are specific questions that speak to your body of work that you want to like follow up on I'll also turn to tech soup on how the best way for us to keep the conversation going is but with the last two minutes I do want to circle back to Jason I know you answered this question already but maybe as a kind of landing the plane question about bringing back to humanizing metrics bring it back to the human element of the work how do you amplify your work without it sounding use the correct phrase I think that it was like exploitative or you're not you're not exploiting people icky you do such a great job of highlighting the wonderful work and it never sounds exploitive so we'd love to hear a little bit about that I can say coming from someone with lived experience my engagement in this work is a way for me to live in amends for the poor choices I made another one of our organizational values is personal responsibility and for us that means being able to look in the mirror and identifying like what we've contributed to how things are well like I dedicated my life when I transformed it to being of service and being of adding value to my community and people's lives so for me it's however uncomfortable it might feel at times share the the poor choices the trauma of 20 years of incarceration it's just a feeling and I'm not governed by my feelings I'm governed by my commitment and I'm committed to to add value to our society and people's lives so that's personally as as far as other people who are in the work and the utilization of other transformational stories I would invite them to just check the purpose what's your intention historically there has been maybe an intention to like monetize people's stories or get some type of profit or organizational or corporate notice and that's not that's not a clean purpose but if your purpose is to help people to see people as people and to level the playing field to provide them with opportunities to succeed and be valuable contributing members of society then I think that most justice involved people will be very happy to share their stories with them absolutely thanks for sharing that thank you for landing the plane I think I'll hand it back over to Billy to close out for the morning thank you Emily for such a thoughtful crisp and poignant conversation thank you Jason Andrew and Anastasia for just such a it was such a this is such a rich conversation I appreciate your thoughtfulness and your presence and sincerity and the lessons and insights you shared it's really appreciated thank you audience members for joining us