Do our nonprofit’s values support leader development?

Context

Guided by the Incarnational Training Framework (ITF), the mission of Street Psalms is to assist leaders and organizations as they experience three key paradigm shifts related to their way of seeing, doing, and being so that they are “free” to engage themselves fully in the work of urban transformation.  Although lived experience and anecdotal evidence has suggested that this Framework is impactful, Street Psalms asked Beyond Data to test this framework empirically so that they would have clearer, firmer evidence that the assumptions that guide their organization’s mission are valid.

Research

In partnership with Street Psalms leaders, we designed measures of the Framework’s key concepts as well as leadership behavior that represented the organization’s understanding of what it means to be a “free leader.”  We obtained data from the Street Psalms network participants as well as from a sample of community members, matched on key variables so that we could draw more robust conclusions about the Framework’s unique impact.

Deliverable

By comparing Street Psalms and the Community samples, the final report illuminated which key concepts were most important and which predicted leader behavior. Not only can Street Psalms use these findings to substantiate their training model when applying for grants or speaking to donors but they also have a clearer way for evaluating their program’s impact in the future. The report provided new insights for how their key concepts function within their constituent base and offered actionable insights upon which to refine future programming.