Each year around this time, Circles USA gears up to publish our Impact Report. From early drafts to video production and the countdown to announce we’re live, our national office is all-hands-on-deck to deliver amazing results to our community of practice annually. It’s with a huge internal Yes! that we bring you of-the-moment figures on membership growth, conference recaps, partner news, and more positive data on Big View organizing outcomes than we could have dreamed when CUSA launched more than 25 years ago.
All the numbers are there…but what is Circles, beyond the sum of these moving parts? What about the lives and communities transformed by the daily practice of chapters nationwide? What does it mean for a child to shift from couch-surfing to a stable apartment in a better school district? What does it mean for the self-esteem of a single mother who now has advanced at work and purchased her first car? How does healing translate to spreadsheets, flowcharts and infographics? How can grassroots transformation be quantified?
After three years as Circles USA’s executive director, I will tell you absolutely: It can’t be. These are the unspoken, perhaps unmeasurable aspects of CUSA’s interactive model. Time and experience moving in solidarity with our network has taught us that we are supporting whole people, whole families, and whole chapters in the transformative work of building communities to end poverty.
Nonprofit funding cycles are often driven by numeric and quantitative outcomes, like X people out of poverty or Y people served, which don’t get to the holistic, long-term result we’re aiming for. Short-term grants typically demand a one-or-two year turnaround for results. But leaving poverty behind permanently, changing one’s life trajectory, can’t be put on a calendar or timeframe. On average, participants in Circles reach amazing outcomes by 18 months; yet some take longer, some shorter. It depends on many factors, particularly the number and nature of intersectional barriers they are facing.
A 2020 study by Tema Okun and Dismantling Racism Works (dRworks) roots into these structural factors—such as race, age, and physical ability—to present a more complete picture of how identity impacts the timeline and criteria funders in primarily white institutions (PWIs) like to measure. Examples of ways that PWIs can enmesh white supremacy into outcome measurement include:
all resources of organization are directed toward producing measurable goals
things that can be measured are more highly valued than things that cannot…[F]or example numbers of people attending a meeting, newsletter circulation, money spent are valued more than quality of relationships, democratic decision-making, ability to constructively deal with conflict
little or no value attached to process; if it can’t be measured, it has no value
discomfort with emotion and feelings
no understanding that when there is a conflict between content (the agenda of the meeting) and process (people’s need to be heard or engaged), process will prevail (for example, you may get through the agenda, but if you haven’t paid attention to people’s need to be heard, the decisions made at the meeting are undermined and/or disregarded).
At Circles, we know that what’s more important than any statistic we could report are the relationships formed—the ones that last a lifetime. A new narrative is running through the collective heart and mind of our membership: to believe in themselves and their communities again, or maybe for the first time ever. To reconnect with hopes and dreams and people!
Far beyond benchmarks for measuring economic progress by upticks in homeownership, transportation, education, and employment, Circles cultivates in our participants qualities like autonomy and belonging, a sense of inherent worth and hope. And the internal growth is iterative: How does wellbeing outpicture for multiple generations to come when your parent’s inner narrative has shifted from surviving to thriving? What is it like for a family to leave poverty behind permanently for generations to come?
These unmeasurable outcomes of lives transformed are the heart of what Circles USA continues to hold as top priority, regardless of funders or business trends that demand growth for growth’s sake. We remain committed to the internal growth that has far more impact than any report we could ever share.
to end poverty, together.
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