By Dr. Christian A. Friend, Chief Impact Officer
We are excited to announce that our research and policy team has merged with our program innovation team to form the newly created Impact Division. The new division is created to align to Heartland Alliance’s new strategic plan, increase connectivity between the division and Heartland Alliance’s program services, and create even more social impact at the institutional and systemic levels.
To develop the plan for this division, we gathered input from existing internal stakeholders, program participant voices, division team members, and program partners. We utilized this feedback to develop a new purpose statement for the division that advances the overall Heartland Alliance mission: Our purpose is to advance Heartland Alliance’s mission and vision of social, economic, and racial justice for people who have been denied it through research, data analysis, policy advocacy, program innovation, and field support.
To achieve this purpose, we have created a theory of change for the division that outlines this purpose as the ultimate impact of our work. In the short term, our desired outcomes are state and federal policy changes, dissemination of best and promising practices that advance justice, building public narratives that have equity and/or anti-racist lenses, improving programs and operations, and increasing the voice, choice, and power of marginalized people.
Our next step was to organize the division to achieve this purpose and implement the theory of change. We are now organized into three teams who will do the work to effect institutional and systemic change. Our Innovation and Practice Team, led by Jvani Cabiness, will house our external field support, consultation, technical assistance, and capacity-strengthening work while also providing program consultation and capacity-strengthening internally at Heartland Alliance. This team will also house our program innovation team, which will help develop and document innovative new services and processes. Our Policy and Advocacy Team, led by Rachel O’Konis Ruttenberg, will continue to create state-level legislative and administrative change. We envision a future where this team expands to do more federal policy advocacy work. Our Social IMPACT Research Center, led by Katie Buitrago, will continue to be a resource for non-profit partners, public agencies, and broad stakeholder groups by providing consultation and services in the areas of data analysis and management, policy research, program evaluation, and theory of change process facilitation and strategy management.
We are excitedly embracing this massive undertaking to help create a more socially, economically, and racially just society. Please take a moment to learn about the projects in this newsletter as examples of how our new division is already working to create more social IMPACT!
