How can we easily measure whether an organization has the characteristics of a Community in Mission?

Context

The mission of Street Psalms is directed at freeing leaders to love and serve in the shape of a Community in Mission (CiM). CiMs, however, are not always easy to identify. At their most basic level, CiMs have a community large enough to sustain a mission and a mission that is meaningful enough to hold the community. And yet, these may come in the form of various types of organizations, groups, and sizes; they may be secular or faith-based and promote human flourishing in a variety of ways. 

Because Street Psalms is most interested in partnering with and promoting the development of CiMs, they needed an easy, reliable, and valid way to measure the degree to which a given organization or group possesses the characteristics of a CiM. Unlike traditional start-ups that would consider the financial ROI, Street Psalms was interested in understanding whether their initiatives and programming truly do lead organizations to become more like a CiM engaged in human flourishing. 

Research

Drawing upon the conceptual work Street Psalms had done to define CiMs, Beyond Data developed survey items and piloted these items with a few partners to refine them. Beyond Data then conducted a validation study that used an experimental manipulation as a means of checking item quality and developing cutoff scores for the three areas measured with the CiM scale. 

Deliverable

The final deliverable was a 12 question survey that the Street Psalms Design Studio team can easily fill out each time they work on a project. These responses produce a report that offers sub-scale totals as well as an overall total score so that when Street Psalms works with a partner they can gauge whether or not the organization does, in fact, meet their criteria. Further, when they work with the same partner more than once, the survey links the results together so they can see over time change. In summary, this measure provides a quantitative way to measure ROI for a variable that is meaningful to Street Psalms.