September 24, 2025 • 35 mins
The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) is partnering with nonprofits to uncover what works—and why. In this sponsored episode, we hear the stories of programs strengthened by evidence. Plus we meet the executive director of Corner to Corner in Nashville, Shana Berkeley, who is partnering with LEO to design research. Guest from the LEO team include researcher Patrick Turner and project development lead Fran Gallagher. To inquire about partnering, visit PartnerWithLEO.org.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawut media.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Research helps us to really understand what about those It
makes them not a unicorn, right, but it's something that
we can make more predictable and understand what's necessary for
the foundations of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
This is Lucas Grinley from Next City, a show about
change makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions
to the problems oppressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. If you run
a nonprofit, you've probably been asked a familiar question, can
you prove your impact? For nonprofits, rigorous research can feel
(00:43):
out of reach, yet without it, funding and policy support
are harder to win. Today, we're partnering with Notre Dames
Wilson ch Hin Lab for Economic Opportunities or LEO to
its friends, and on the sponsored episode will explore how
research can strengthen nonprofits and expand their impact. You'll hear
from an ex secutive director and a researcher working together
to measure whether a program is truly making a difference.
(01:05):
Sheena Berkeley leads Corner to Corner in Nashville, which helps
underestimated entrepreneurs start and grow their own businesses. And Patrick
Turner is the LEO researcher working Alongsider helping design the
study that could shape how the program grows and how
funders see its value. We'll start with fran Gallagher, who
leads project development at LEO. We asked her to share
(01:25):
examples of how nonprofits have partnered to produce research findings
that finally put data behind the story of what's working.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I think it's important to start with what we believe
here at LEO. First, we believe that poverty can be outsmarted.
We believe that you, the social service community, and those
who are closest to the problem have the secret sauce
that will help us outsmart poverty. But we also believe
that evidence needs to be part of that story. So
(01:57):
a little bit about LEO. LEO is an academic research
center that lives within the Economics department at the University
of Notre Dame. We were founded in twenty twelve by
two economics professors who were doing a lot of poverty
research in their academic work and frankly finding that it
was mostly staying in the academic sphere, so being read
(02:20):
by other economists, but otherwise not doing all that they
had hoped. So the way we do our work as
we partner with service providers all over the country, we
help them conduct rigorous evaluation on the programs they're running,
and our goal is to build out a body of
evidence about what really works when it comes to helping
a person move out of poverty. And then when we
find something that works, how can we help scale we're appropriate,
(02:44):
replicate where appropriate, ultimately affect policy and philanthropy so that
dollars are flowing towards interventions we know are actually moving
the needle for people. Most service providers don't have the
funding or the internal capacity to do their own rigorous evaluation,
and that is where we come in. We can bring
that research muscle to the table to shine light on
(03:07):
the great work you're already doing in communities. At LEO,
we offer our research at no cost to our partners.
We cover all the costs of doing the research. We
ask that our partners cover the cost of providing their
program or service. We have over one hundred projects now
across thirty states, and we're interested in a wide variety
(03:27):
of anti poverty work. So some of those projects have
focused on housing and homelessness, health, education, criminal justice, and
economic mobility. We know that oftentimes those things are interconnected,
and so a project may not focus so narrowly on
just one of those topics. So why partner with LEO?
(03:48):
Impact starts with knowing. We often say the only thing
worse than rigorous research is not knowing if what you're
doing is actually making a difference. Research can be a
really powerful tool toolkit to help you understand the impact
you're having on the people in your community. We have
found that more evidence often leads to more money. Funders
(04:09):
are asking for proof of impact, and the work we
do together can be that proof and allow you to
tell your story that much more effectively.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Later in the episode, we'll share information about how to
reach out to LEO, But first let's dig into the
results of one of those projects, the Goodwill Excel Center.
It's a free, public charter school that helps adults earn
high school diplomas. In just two and a half years
partnering with LEO, Researchers found that graduates of the program
are nearly forty percent more over five years. We're more
likely to be employed and too enroll in college, and
(04:42):
reported life skills beyond what a GED program typically offers.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
While the results are tremendous, I think what is also
tremendous is what we've been able to do in partnership
with Goodwill with those results. So the first piece is
that Goodwill has been able to expand beyond Indiana and
is now operating in nine states. In some of those
expansion states, there are legacy laws that prevent a student
(05:09):
from getting a diploma after a certain age, and LEO
and Goodwill have partnered together to testify before state legislators
to change those laws and allow for the expansion of
an Excel center in that state. In twenty twenty two,
the state of Arizona appropriated twelve million dollars for Excel centers.
Now they are up and running and serving hundreds of
(05:30):
students every year. And in Indiana, Goodwill has used their
results to expand funding for Excel centers across the state
so that they can serve even more students. Their long
term goal is to open eighty five Excel centers by
twenty thirty.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Another example of research that led to growth is from
Santa Clara County in California, where Destination Home offers one
time emergency financial assistance to families at risk of losing
their homes. The research found the program truly prevents homelessness
with lasting results.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
We saw a decrease in homelessness for those who participated
in the program that actually persists over time, so it
is not a band aid solution that kicks the can
down the road. It really does prevent homelessness over time.
For those who did not receive the financial assistance, they
were three times more likely to experience homelessness. And in
(06:25):
addition to the outcomes that the research team tracked for
the people who participated in the program, they did a
cost benefit analysis and were able to show that for
every dollar spent on emergency financial assistance, there were savings
of two dollars and forty seven cents. What have we
done with the results, First, they have been shared with
(06:46):
the local stakeholders in Santa Clara County and have led
to really significant expansion of the program. So the budget
has increased to serve thousands of households every year and
it is now predominantly funded with public dollars versus when
it first started it was predominantly funded with private dollars.
We've also done a lot of work on the federal
(07:07):
policy side to try and advocate for housing dollars to
be allocated towards prevention. In partnership with Destination Home, we
have developed a toolkit that can be utilized across the
nation and includes step by step information about how to
set up a homelessness prevention system in your community. And then, finally,
(07:27):
we continue to translate our results into more layperson terms
that contribute to national conversations, including writing pieces for popular
press to talk about the best ways to address the
homelessness crisis.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Thank you, fran I'm just very excited about this. I
hope people heard that part This is at no cost
to you to participate and it helps solve this major
problem that we all hear as people running nonprofits. Oh
can you show that you have impact? So I want
to welcome to guests who are going to help us
delve more deeply into how this works. We're going to
(08:02):
focus in on one story and that's a nonprofit in
Nashville called Corner to Corner. So I'm joined by Shana Berkeley,
the organization's executive director. Welcome, Shena. I know you're you're
in the midst of a program right now with Leo,
you're kind of in the middle of it, and I'm
wondering if you could introduce Corner to Corner and kind
of how you intersect with solving poverty. But then also
(08:23):
what led you to work with Leo? What was the
thing you were trying to show.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
We're in Nashville based nonprofit, but really our heart's mission
is to make sure that all of our neighbors flourish
on their own terms.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
And we do have through a.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Project called the Academy, where we help underestimated entrepreneurs plans
start and grow their own businesses.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
And really flourish on their own terms.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
But the Academy has been around since twenty sixteen and
since then we've graduated one thousand, six hundred and thirty
two entrepreneurs in Nashville. Last year, they put thirty seven
million dollars back into the neighborhood economy.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
And so we're really out of the work that we're doing.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Our specifically we help when we say underestimated, they look
like black founders, eighty eight percent or women, but you know, historically, marginalized,
under resource, all those words that kind of mean the
same thing. We like underestimated because we feel like it shows,
you know, the grits of the passion, talents and drive
of our neighbors. And we have amazing success stories for
(09:23):
our study. For research specifically, I learned about it from
our co founder and I always tell a story that
he kind of tricked me into research. So it was
the right it was the right choice. But he was like, SHANNEA,
We're going to take a trip note.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
The Dame to learn more about LEO and research.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
And at the time, we were a tiny now we're
a medium sized now, but we were a tiny nonprofit.
Two people working here never had a work trip, and
it was the cost was covered.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
I was like, I'm going looking. So I went and
I thought I was learning.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, he had already was like, hey, if Shanna says yes,
then we're doing it. So he had already in the
back and kind of told them like you got a
convince her, but we're going to do it. And so
when I got there, I was like, wait, I feel
like everybody's in on a conversation, and so I was like, well,
let me just hear them out.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
And I learned a lot about the value of data right.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
And so when I heard what Leo was presenting in
front of me, which was Channa, let's see what parts
of your program is excelling and double down on that,
and let's see what part isn't helpful and can you
cut that away? And it's nonprofit workers. We know we
always want to do these wrap around services, but are
they really moving the needle. That was really what convinced
me to come on board with research.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
You had to come along to the idea of doing
research as someone who's running a nonprofit and this is
your experience that you know, you go out to seek
research to demonstrate a program is effective and it's not
done because it's like, oh, I'm a nonprofit leader and
I'm not sure if this is working. I don't think
it's It's not like about doubt in other words, right,
but there's there's so much we don't witness in the
(10:55):
ripple effects of our work at nonprofits. There's always more
to learn, even for an executive director. What's working. I
know you mentioned the success stories, could you maybe share
some of those success stories and kind of how you
see building on those success stories and building the case
that you wouldn't have had before.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
One example is Marcus. Marcus was actually in our first
class in the fallow of twenty sixteen, and he came
in and said, I want to open a restaurant, and
we were like, great, do you have half a million
dollars to open a restaurant?
Speaker 5 (11:23):
He was like no, I said me neither. Okay, so
when and then I was volunteering at the time.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
But because none of us had that, we had to
understand how to start small, to start now. And so
what we did was he made a strategy for him
to do catering and to be able to get feedback,
and he went from catering whatever you wanted at your food,
so really having what they chicken and waffles, which is
like an ice cream waffle cone with chicken on the inside,
and he can have you can have macaroni and cheese
(11:50):
or grits on the top. So it really is don't
tell your doctor you ate it for lunch. But it
really is an amazing culture moment in Nashville. And so
tourists started liking it and he was able to raise
enough money to open a restaurant, and now he has
three restaurants with two restaurants and a bar.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
And so that story.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Of just starting small, starting now really building hearing what
the consumer is saying and being able to grow. That
is a great success story because opening a restaurant is
a hard market and he opened in twenty twenty, but
because he was able to do takeout really well and
understand catering, he was killing it.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
In then Uber Eat.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
He had some of the best reviews, and he actually
was able to pay for ten food entrepreneurs to go
to the academy because he just believed the foundation that
he learned for business with something that he wants to
give back to his neighbors. I mean, we have Jessica,
who is the who has a candle making company. She
suffers from infertility and during COVID went into a deep depression.
She bought a candle making and went from a hobby
(12:47):
to something she wanted to start as a business, but
she didn't know how to do that.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
And so we actually were online in twenty.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Twenty and she took our class and now she has
a really popular candle making studio. She's able to quit
her full time job and make this full time and
she's one of our facilitators for our new students. Even Adrian,
who is the Uber of Notaries in Nashville, so that
means she actually have other notaries that she sends out
to do notary services around the city.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
That means you have independent contractors and you have taxes
and things of that nature.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
All that was grown.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
From them being able to go through the academy and
Adrian was able to three x her income after taking
our class in that same calendar year and be able
to spend more time with her family, bought her son
a passport, send him on a school trip to Spain,
and was able to really build legacy for her family.
And so those are some of the success stories, but
also research helps us to really understand what about those
(13:41):
It makes them not a unicorn, right, but it's something
that we can make more predictable and understand what's necessary
for the foundations of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
That's a very good way of putting it. Yeah, you
have sixteen hundred potential stories, and yeah, you don't want
it to be all just a unicorn. After the break,
we hear from researcher Patrick Turner to explain how to
this in a study that creates results influential enough to
reshape both funding and policy. Welcome back. We've heard how
(14:14):
research partnerships from LEO have help programs prove their impact
and then scale. We met Shana Berkeley from Corner to
Corner in Nashville, who's bringing that same approach to her
academy for underestimated entrepreneurs. It's one thing to know a
program is working, but it's another to measure just how
far the ripple effects reach. Here is Patrick Turner, who's
an assistant professor of economics at the University of Notre
(14:35):
Dame and a researcher with LEO. So people come to
you with this, they know what their impact is, they
have a feeling about what's working right, and then they
have these stories and they need to design a program.
They're probably going to start by meeting with someone like
Frand and eventually be connected matchmaked with a researcher like you.
(14:58):
You were the researcher who worked on the Goodwill Excel Center,
and you know, they couldn't have known that these folks
were five years after they went through that program then
earning forty percent more than folks who hadn't gone through
the program. So how do you work with an organization
to come up with what's the right kind of research
to help show their impact? What happens after you are
(15:20):
introduced to Shana, because the match is good.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
You know, I always love hearing these stories that Shanea
shares of her participants in Marcus and Jessica and and
oftentimes a nonprofit knows a really good amount of information
about their graduates and particularly their successful graduates, and they
follow up with their participants over time and do surveys
of their alumni and such. But like you said, Lucas,
many times you don't know about the people they're not serving.
(15:44):
You don't know what would have happened to Marcus had
he not gone through the academy. You don't know what
would have happened to Jessica in her candle making business
had she not gone through the academy. And so that's
kind of where we step in, and that's kind of
the first part. And so when frans Team kind of
pivots and sends over a nonprofit to a research team,
we really start on this journey of kind of co
creating a research project together. We want to make sure
(16:07):
that any evaluation that we do provides actionable information to
the nonprofit, so that Shana can take what she learns
from our study and make concrete changes or double down
on what they're doing and actually take action. And so,
like I said, it's really this co creative process where
we dig in and try to identify the key questions
that the nonprofit has, What are the key questions in
the academic literature that would be useful for a broader understanding,
(16:30):
for us to make them, for us to move the
needle on, and then we really move along and design
the study. I ask a lot of questions about Shana
and the nonprofits I work with. How do people find
out about their program, how do they enroll? What does
it look like from a participant's perspective as they apply
and roll and participate in a program. And we think
through and try to identify ways in which we can
(16:53):
overlay a rigorous research evaluation on top of the work
that the nonprofit's already doing. In the case of Conative Want,
Shana mentioned that they already knew they had some neighbors
in Nashville who could benefit and were interested in the academy,
but they weren't able to serve everybody. They doubled down
and reached out and advertised their program to a broader
(17:13):
set of nationale residents to make sure that we have
a large enough set of individuals going through the program
as well as an experimental control group that are told no,
not yet, we don't quite yet have space for you
in this program. And I just want to take a
moment here to say that, like, we take the dignity
of the individuals going through that part of the process,
both the frontline program staff, but also the dignity of
(17:36):
the person applying for the program very seriously. And so
so we worked very closely with Shana and her team
to make sure that the language we were using around
randomization and consenting to the program and the study participation.
And so we designed these research partner you know partnerships
very closely, you know, co creating this together, and then
set up ways in which we can measure outcomes in
(17:58):
the long term to see how people like Marcus and
Jessica were doing well after they applied for the academy,
but also the Marcus and Jusica's that didn't get an
opportunity in the academy, so we can measure the effect
of the program. And that's really where we're at with
Shana right now, is waiting for the data to come
in and seeing how the experiences of her participants are
comparing to the experience of these other individuals.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, you can't serve everybody, and maybe that's a comfort
when doing this, but yeah, it's disturbing, right, So to
that point that you do need a control group, a
comparison group of some kind. And you know, these are
serious situations we're talking about where the example from Destination Home,
where you're able to prove their homeless prevention intervention worked
(18:40):
and that people who didn't take advantage of the program
were three times more likely to enter homelessness. This is
a serious consequences, right, So how do you talk to
the people that you're working with at these nonprofits to
assuage any concerns that come up around that or is
there any advice that you offer on it.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Really, what we're asking nonprofits to do is learn from
use the fact that they already have to say no
to people, either implicitly or explicitly, and be able to
learn from those no's right. And so in the example
of Destination Home and emergency financial assistance, it's you know,
there is a certain amount budgeted to be able to
provide emergency financial assistance, and oftentimes that budget doesn't meet
(19:20):
the need of the local community. And one way this
has played out for you know, for example, for a
destination home and homelessness prevention more broadly, is that once
we've gotten that number right the dollar of emergency financial
assistance generated more than two dollars in savings for the government,
then it's very easy to convince policymakers and other foundations
(19:41):
who are funding these programs to scale up and double
down on these investments. And so while you're turning people
away today, you know, a successful impact evaluation might have
the possibility of meaning you can serve more people in
the future. And I think you know, that's the hope
that we saw with Destination Home. It's certainly what we've
seen with Goodwill Excel centers. We've been able to take
this positive evidence and go to policy makers and say, look,
(20:03):
this investment that you're making in your local residence doesn't
just make sense from like a positive story of improving
people's lives, but it's actually a good investment for your
community to make these investments, and so you can scale
that up and serve more people in the long run.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Shana, I'll ask you about the control group at Corner
to corner. And I know you had mentioned you were
smaller at one point and that you've grown the application
pool using these marketing services that you work with Leo
on Can you tell us more about how that all
came about and like what you've learned from doing that
and increasing the application pool and how this conversation played out.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Absolutely, and so a lot of our initial ways of
marketing was really word of mouth. Sixty five percent of
our entrepreneurs enrolled because of word of mouth and our
research to help us to understand how many people we
needed to have in the comparison group in order for
it to be a really robust study and one that
had a lot of integrity and for us to be
able to really see what was working and what wasn't.
(21:06):
And so once they gave us that numbers, they also
gave us our marching order. So we started using social
media marketing, we started using in person going to all
the events. We just got better at our language really
explaining what was happening, what does randomization look like? Most
underestimated communities have been taken advantage of when it comes
to a lottery system. So a lot of resystems in
(21:26):
and of themselves are not bad, but when they are
manipulated and a lot of things if you look online
about schools and have lotteries, but it's actually just a
bunch of people who know what to do at the
right time or the right email. And so we have
been very intentional with our researchers about the integrity of
our study.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
My best friend didn't get in, you know, and I'm like,
I hated.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
For you, but it's actually a good story to just
let people know, Hey, listen, we send it to Notre Dame,
we send it to a third party.
Speaker 5 (21:53):
We don't have any say and who does and who doesn't.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And so it has also had a secondary effect of
building a no like in trust factor our community trust
our word when we say we don't have it. When
we say that, you know, they trust us to say, okay,
we know that you all have integrity, which is a
really important part of that community based work that we
do here.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
And so that was something that was really important to us.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
So we've scaled it using what you know for profits
do when they scale right. We use social media, we
use word of mouth, we did events, we went to
other people's events, we built partnerships, and we actually went
from having a wedding list of about seventy five people
to today we have a wedding list of three thy
fourteen people and we serve about We went from serving
(22:34):
about one hundred, so now we serve this this cohort
that just started. We started with three hundred and twelve people,
so we've been able to grow how many we've served.
But I mean with those tactics, we have thousands of
people on our wedding lists. We'll be getting through the
waiting list will after our study is well.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
I mean talk about demonstrating the need for it increasing
the waiting list.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
We all serve Middle Tennessee. So it's not national.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Literally is about if Nashville at our south and an
hour north is what we consider Middle Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
After the break, we'll hear how bringing staff into the
research process change the way Corner to Corner runs its programs,
and why asking the great research questions matters as much
as the answers welcome back. So far, we've seen how
research can validate what nonprofits are already doing and help
(23:28):
them grow. We also heard from Sheena Berkeley at Corner
to Corner about why and how she embraced this partnership
with LEO. Now, Shina talks about what it means to
bring her staff into the process and how that's shaping
the program along the way.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
What I think for an executive director, what we think
about mostly right is our staff, our program, and what
we are doing on the ground. All the research things
will kind of come to those later. But as we
started asking our research question, two things came up that
I thought was really interesting. One is that I made
sure my staff was really involved in the research project
it so they would have a saying and it wouldn't
(24:02):
be a top down but it's really a ground up experience.
And one of the things that we learned from that
was that we were we are making iterations in our program,
asked to study goals because there are questions that our researchers.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Were asking us.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
So I was like, huh, I don't know if I
can answer that fully, and so what are the things
that I can put in place to make that happen.
What are the programs, what are the the weekly calls,
what are the what things need to happen?
Speaker 5 (24:29):
And so it's already just made our program tighter because
we have eyes on us to say, okay, you know,
it's kind of like where your mom's watching You're a
better child.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
It's one of those things and stuff that has been
a really great way for our program to just become
world class without getting any other information back. And then
the second thing, it really forced us to say what
is our research question? And as we were talking to
our research team, we were reminded that our research question
is not if the comparison group.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
Are going to start businesses.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
If we know the history of blackm black Americans have
had to be entrepreneurial in order to survive in this
country as long as we have and to be able
to flourish on some level, So the question of entrepreneurship
was never on the table.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
In fact that our organization was.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Started because we were already entrepreneurial, but we were being
locked out to more traditional pathways to entrepreneurship and funding.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
And so if that isn't the question, then what is
the question?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Right?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
The question is are these particular topics working, is this
length of time working, are these particular facilitators working, are
these locations working? And so it makes you get into
the nitty gritty of your program to say are the
things that are the main thing.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
Actually doing the main thing.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
And so when you ask questions like that, it makes
your program really rise to the occasion. And I have
seen that people have started to take notice, even before
we have any research back. They have seen the efforts
that we have put into our research and those have
been awarded and applauded, and it really is making our
staff a better organization overall.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I mean, we're not
there yet. We don't know what the results are going
to say. But in your ideal world, what do you
hope it's going to happen at the end of all this.
Are you hoping to you know, grow your funding? Are
you hoping to grow the number of people you serve?
What happens in the best possible outcome, the.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Best possible outcome, Yes to all those that I would
really sum it up in this way and say, I
want to make Nashville the number one place for underestimated
entrepreneurs to start a small business. That means that we
have the ecosystem. That means we have brick and mortar space,
that means we have the funding, that means we have
the traffic. That means we have the education and the
partners like all of that is a yes. And so
(26:32):
that's why partnering with LEO has been such a godsend
and important and important parts of our strategy for a
longer term, for our longer term mission, right because not
only is it free, I mean you do still have
to pay for the program support. So it's not like oh, everythanks,
Really you still have to put some skin in the game.
You sued to have to understand how you're moving that
conversation forward. But the thing that I needed as an
(26:55):
addecutive director to say yes to this and to feel
comfortable and confident was partnership, support, the guidance through this
process of research. And you know, I always joke and
be like, at the end of this day, I'm gonna
be a researcher because I know all the terms, I
have faced, all the problems, and so not today may
not hire me, but I know enough to get along.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
And then also I have confidence in the research.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
If they tell me something doesn't work, I trust that
they've looked at it in a three sixty view and
that that doesn't work, and I'm able to put that down.
And even sometimes they offer me really great suggestions of
how to do it.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
Differently, and so having a partner like.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Leo to say, hey, here is what we know for sure,
here's what we're seeing. Here we hear your heart and
what you're trying to face, and here's the ways to
solve that. It really is invaluable. And so we want
to be the number one place for underestimated entrepreneurs to
start small businesses. We want to help other nonprofits who
want to do this for their community, and we want
to show funders what's necessary because sometimes they ask questions
(27:54):
and don't even know what the answer is going to be,
like can you show me research? I'm like, I mean,
I can show you a lot of stuff, like what
do you want to see? It's going to be able
to that conversation in a way that feels fruitful and
still seeing the humanity in our neighbors and them not
just being a number of success or failure. Really is
is what we are So in our studies specifically, not
only do we study the finances of our entrepreneurs, but
the social determinants of health. Do they feel like to
(28:14):
have community, are they a veteran? Do they stay connected?
That's important to us as well, and so those things
have been helpful. And the last thing I'll say is
I just want to remind people that the time will
pass anyway. When they told me three years ago that
this is going to be a four and a half
year study, I'm like, I don't even know if I'm
to be working here four years.
Speaker 5 (28:31):
Maybe I'll hit the power ball and I'll be retired.
It has to happen yet, friends, So that time is
going to pass.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Anyway, So why not during that time passing really be
doing something that you can build you up for legacy.
And if you are a founder and you want to
move out and have a legacy for your nonprofit, what
a great thing to leave behind, which is some really
rigorous research to be able.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
To keep that going long term.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Patrick, maybe a hard question for you, I mean, going
into it the nonprofits, you're trying to decide are these
things working? Do you ever come across the time where
something isn't working and you're finding that in the results,
And how is that play out? And then on the
other side of it, how are when things are working,
how is it that people can use this information to it?
(29:16):
As was put earlier, sort of it more wesearch equals
more money, you.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Know, like I said, this is kind of a it's
a partnership, right, And so when we do find evidence
that doesn't suggest the same level of promise like that
we showed with Destination Home or good Will Excel Center,
I think the next question is why why why aren't
we seeing the effects that we saw a lot of
times when we're picking the right project. We think the
program's doing something right. The nonprofit has these success stories,
(29:43):
and so why might it be that we're not finding
that same impact when we're looking through a rigorous evaluation,
And so we ask questions like was it not properly targeted?
You know, did the program not go to the type
of people that might benefit the most from it? And
so we do some heterogeneady analysis to understand where, you know,
if the program wasn't working overall, maybe there were some
types of participants that benefited more or less than others,
(30:06):
and try to understand if it was a targeting question.
We try to dig into the data on program implementation
and maybe the program wasn't working because it wasn't well implemented,
or they know, if it was a say like a
case management program, maybe the case management wasn't delivered to
the level of intensity that they might have expected when
they were designing the program model. In my own work,
(30:28):
I think that's played out in terms of helping a
partner in the sense that we were tracking some of
that program implementation data while the project was going along,
and it was a program that was designed to kind
of provide services to folks early after reaching out to
this particular agency, and the data were showing us that
people weren't engaging with the program until thirty forty five
(30:50):
days after they originally contacted the agency. And so as
a part of that kind of data analysis and tracking
program outcomes, we were able to kind of coach the
agency to reach out and kind of improve the program implementation,
make sure they're reaching out and engaging with the clients
who are interested in the program at an earlier time period.
And so I think it's a continual learning process and
(31:13):
then digging in and trying to understand what might have
gone on that led to the outcomes that we saw.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
If there's someone listening and they're thinking, oh, I think
I do want to do this, what's a good piece
of advice for folks who are considering this.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
It takes a certain level of vulnerability for a nonprofit
to allow us researchers to shine a light on what
they're doing, and so, you know, be brave. I think
the thing that I just love about Shanea is her
you know, like Fran mentioned when we were talking about
the right Partner, she believes in the people that she serves.
(31:46):
She believes in her organization what they're doing, and you know,
I think it takes courage to kind of allow us,
for her to open the books and allow us in
and observe that, and so just trust in that process,
and I think it's a great, great way to learn
and make sure that what you're doing is really having impact.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Yeah, thanks for that. So, Fran, if folks are interested
in this, there's a place to reach out. Can you
kind of walk us through how they go about reaching
out and what would happen after that?
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Yeah, thank you. I think what Patrick said about it
requiring deep bravery to put yourself under the microscope is
really true. I also think sort of contemplating whether or
not we should start doing rigorous research is a big, hairy,
complicated question, and the reality is it's probably very specific
(32:36):
to your organization and the type of work that you
do and what you're trying to achieve what worked for
Shane and corner to corner might not have worked for Goodwill,
might not work for the City of Rochester. And so
part of this is really just taking the first step
and saying, like, I need to learn more and ask
questions that are specific to me and the organization that
I lead and operate. And so that's really the purpose
(32:59):
of that first call that you would schedule with Leo
is like, let's stop talking theoretical and actually get down
to brass tacks and learn about each other and see
if this could be a right fit. That process evolves
if it is a good fit, to thinking through the
high level details of a potential project. What program do
you want to study? What outcomes do you want to measure?
(33:20):
Is there a pathway to randomization? Do we have a
large enough sample size? All of those things? And then
organizations complete the process by coming to Notre Dame for
a discovery day and sharing their project idea with the
Patrick Turners of the world and with LEO leadership to
understand if this would be a good fit, and then
they get accepted into a cohort, they get paired with
(33:41):
a research team. My team really fades into the background
and we go off and find new partners in projects again.
So my biggest piece of advice would be to say,
don't be afraid to have that first conversation and see
if this could be a good fit. If it is amazing,
it's not, Maybe it is in a couple of years
(34:01):
and you know more about what needs to be true
for it to be the right fit.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Next City, the
show about change makers and their stories. Together we can
spread good ideas from one city to the next city.
This sponsored episode was produced in partnership with the Wilson
Chien Lab for Economic Opportunities. If you're interested in learning
more about how to work with LEO, visit Partner with
Leo dot org. That's partner with l EO dot org.
(34:41):
Thank you to our guests Sheena Berkeley of Corner to Corner,
Patrick Turner from the Wilson Chen Lab for Economic Opportunities,
and Fran Gallagher, also from LEO. This episode is based
on a Next City webinar. You can watch the full
conversation by visiting Nextity dot org slash webinars. Our audio
producer is Silvana Alcala, our show producers Maggie Bowles, our
execut Their producer is Ryan Tillodson, and I'm Lucas Grinley,
(35:02):
executive director for Next City. We'd love to hear any
feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to email us
at info atnexcity dot org and if you haven't already,
subscribed to the show on Apple, Spotify, good Pods, or
anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
Strawut media.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Research helps us to really understand what about those It
makes them not a unicorn, right, but it's something that
we can make more predictable and understand what's necessary for
the foundations of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
This is Lucas Grinley from Next City, a show about
change makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions
to the problems oppressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. If you run
a nonprofit, you've probably been asked a familiar question, can
you prove your impact? For nonprofits, rigorous research can feel
(00:43):
out of reach, yet without it, funding and policy support
are harder to win. Today, we're partnering with Notre Dames
Wilson ch Hin Lab for Economic Opportunities or LEO to
its friends, and on the sponsored episode will explore how
research can strengthen nonprofits and expand their impact. You'll hear
from an ex secutive director and a researcher working together
to measure whether a program is truly making a difference.
(01:05):
Sheena Berkeley leads Corner to Corner in Nashville, which helps
underestimated entrepreneurs start and grow their own businesses. And Patrick
Turner is the LEO researcher working Alongsider helping design the
study that could shape how the program grows and how
funders see its value. We'll start with fran Gallagher, who
leads project development at LEO. We asked her to share
(01:25):
examples of how nonprofits have partnered to produce research findings
that finally put data behind the story of what's working.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I think it's important to start with what we believe
here at LEO. First, we believe that poverty can be outsmarted.
We believe that you, the social service community, and those
who are closest to the problem have the secret sauce
that will help us outsmart poverty. But we also believe
that evidence needs to be part of that story. So
(01:57):
a little bit about LEO. LEO is an academic research
center that lives within the Economics department at the University
of Notre Dame. We were founded in twenty twelve by
two economics professors who were doing a lot of poverty
research in their academic work and frankly finding that it
was mostly staying in the academic sphere, so being read
(02:20):
by other economists, but otherwise not doing all that they
had hoped. So the way we do our work as
we partner with service providers all over the country, we
help them conduct rigorous evaluation on the programs they're running,
and our goal is to build out a body of
evidence about what really works when it comes to helping
a person move out of poverty. And then when we
find something that works, how can we help scale we're appropriate,
(02:44):
replicate where appropriate, ultimately affect policy and philanthropy so that
dollars are flowing towards interventions we know are actually moving
the needle for people. Most service providers don't have the
funding or the internal capacity to do their own rigorous evaluation,
and that is where we come in. We can bring
that research muscle to the table to shine light on
(03:07):
the great work you're already doing in communities. At LEO,
we offer our research at no cost to our partners.
We cover all the costs of doing the research. We
ask that our partners cover the cost of providing their
program or service. We have over one hundred projects now
across thirty states, and we're interested in a wide variety
(03:27):
of anti poverty work. So some of those projects have
focused on housing and homelessness, health, education, criminal justice, and
economic mobility. We know that oftentimes those things are interconnected,
and so a project may not focus so narrowly on
just one of those topics. So why partner with LEO?
(03:48):
Impact starts with knowing. We often say the only thing
worse than rigorous research is not knowing if what you're
doing is actually making a difference. Research can be a
really powerful tool toolkit to help you understand the impact
you're having on the people in your community. We have
found that more evidence often leads to more money. Funders
(04:09):
are asking for proof of impact, and the work we
do together can be that proof and allow you to
tell your story that much more effectively.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Later in the episode, we'll share information about how to
reach out to LEO, But first let's dig into the
results of one of those projects, the Goodwill Excel Center.
It's a free, public charter school that helps adults earn
high school diplomas. In just two and a half years
partnering with LEO, Researchers found that graduates of the program
are nearly forty percent more over five years. We're more
likely to be employed and too enroll in college, and
(04:42):
reported life skills beyond what a GED program typically offers.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
While the results are tremendous, I think what is also
tremendous is what we've been able to do in partnership
with Goodwill with those results. So the first piece is
that Goodwill has been able to expand beyond Indiana and
is now operating in nine states. In some of those
expansion states, there are legacy laws that prevent a student
(05:09):
from getting a diploma after a certain age, and LEO
and Goodwill have partnered together to testify before state legislators
to change those laws and allow for the expansion of
an Excel center in that state. In twenty twenty two,
the state of Arizona appropriated twelve million dollars for Excel centers.
Now they are up and running and serving hundreds of
(05:30):
students every year. And in Indiana, Goodwill has used their
results to expand funding for Excel centers across the state
so that they can serve even more students. Their long
term goal is to open eighty five Excel centers by
twenty thirty.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Another example of research that led to growth is from
Santa Clara County in California, where Destination Home offers one
time emergency financial assistance to families at risk of losing
their homes. The research found the program truly prevents homelessness
with lasting results.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
We saw a decrease in homelessness for those who participated
in the program that actually persists over time, so it
is not a band aid solution that kicks the can
down the road. It really does prevent homelessness over time.
For those who did not receive the financial assistance, they
were three times more likely to experience homelessness. And in
(06:25):
addition to the outcomes that the research team tracked for
the people who participated in the program, they did a
cost benefit analysis and were able to show that for
every dollar spent on emergency financial assistance, there were savings
of two dollars and forty seven cents. What have we
done with the results, First, they have been shared with
(06:46):
the local stakeholders in Santa Clara County and have led
to really significant expansion of the program. So the budget
has increased to serve thousands of households every year and
it is now predominantly funded with public dollars versus when
it first started it was predominantly funded with private dollars.
We've also done a lot of work on the federal
(07:07):
policy side to try and advocate for housing dollars to
be allocated towards prevention. In partnership with Destination Home, we
have developed a toolkit that can be utilized across the
nation and includes step by step information about how to
set up a homelessness prevention system in your community. And then, finally,
(07:27):
we continue to translate our results into more layperson terms
that contribute to national conversations, including writing pieces for popular
press to talk about the best ways to address the
homelessness crisis.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Thank you, fran I'm just very excited about this. I
hope people heard that part This is at no cost
to you to participate and it helps solve this major
problem that we all hear as people running nonprofits. Oh
can you show that you have impact? So I want
to welcome to guests who are going to help us
delve more deeply into how this works. We're going to
(08:02):
focus in on one story and that's a nonprofit in
Nashville called Corner to Corner. So I'm joined by Shana Berkeley,
the organization's executive director. Welcome, Shena. I know you're you're
in the midst of a program right now with Leo,
you're kind of in the middle of it, and I'm
wondering if you could introduce Corner to Corner and kind
of how you intersect with solving poverty. But then also
(08:23):
what led you to work with Leo? What was the
thing you were trying to show.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
We're in Nashville based nonprofit, but really our heart's mission
is to make sure that all of our neighbors flourish
on their own terms.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
And we do have through a.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Project called the Academy, where we help underestimated entrepreneurs plans
start and grow their own businesses.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
And really flourish on their own terms.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
But the Academy has been around since twenty sixteen and
since then we've graduated one thousand, six hundred and thirty
two entrepreneurs in Nashville. Last year, they put thirty seven
million dollars back into the neighborhood economy.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
And so we're really out of the work that we're doing.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Our specifically we help when we say underestimated, they look
like black founders, eighty eight percent or women, but you know, historically, marginalized,
under resource, all those words that kind of mean the
same thing. We like underestimated because we feel like it shows,
you know, the grits of the passion, talents and drive
of our neighbors. And we have amazing success stories for
(09:23):
our study. For research specifically, I learned about it from
our co founder and I always tell a story that
he kind of tricked me into research. So it was
the right it was the right choice. But he was like, SHANNEA,
We're going to take a trip note.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
The Dame to learn more about LEO and research.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
And at the time, we were a tiny now we're
a medium sized now, but we were a tiny nonprofit.
Two people working here never had a work trip, and
it was the cost was covered.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
I was like, I'm going looking. So I went and
I thought I was learning.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, he had already was like, hey, if Shanna says yes,
then we're doing it. So he had already in the
back and kind of told them like you got a
convince her, but we're going to do it. And so
when I got there, I was like, wait, I feel
like everybody's in on a conversation, and so I was like, well,
let me just hear them out.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
And I learned a lot about the value of data right.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
And so when I heard what Leo was presenting in
front of me, which was Channa, let's see what parts
of your program is excelling and double down on that,
and let's see what part isn't helpful and can you
cut that away? And it's nonprofit workers. We know we
always want to do these wrap around services, but are
they really moving the needle. That was really what convinced
me to come on board with research.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
You had to come along to the idea of doing
research as someone who's running a nonprofit and this is
your experience that you know, you go out to seek
research to demonstrate a program is effective and it's not
done because it's like, oh, I'm a nonprofit leader and
I'm not sure if this is working. I don't think
it's It's not like about doubt in other words, right,
but there's there's so much we don't witness in the
(10:55):
ripple effects of our work at nonprofits. There's always more
to learn, even for an executive director. What's working. I
know you mentioned the success stories, could you maybe share
some of those success stories and kind of how you
see building on those success stories and building the case
that you wouldn't have had before.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
One example is Marcus. Marcus was actually in our first
class in the fallow of twenty sixteen, and he came
in and said, I want to open a restaurant, and
we were like, great, do you have half a million
dollars to open a restaurant?
Speaker 5 (11:23):
He was like no, I said me neither. Okay, so
when and then I was volunteering at the time.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
But because none of us had that, we had to
understand how to start small, to start now. And so
what we did was he made a strategy for him
to do catering and to be able to get feedback,
and he went from catering whatever you wanted at your food,
so really having what they chicken and waffles, which is
like an ice cream waffle cone with chicken on the inside,
and he can have you can have macaroni and cheese
(11:50):
or grits on the top. So it really is don't
tell your doctor you ate it for lunch. But it
really is an amazing culture moment in Nashville. And so
tourists started liking it and he was able to raise
enough money to open a restaurant, and now he has
three restaurants with two restaurants and a bar.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
And so that story.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Of just starting small, starting now really building hearing what
the consumer is saying and being able to grow. That
is a great success story because opening a restaurant is
a hard market and he opened in twenty twenty, but
because he was able to do takeout really well and
understand catering, he was killing it.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
In then Uber Eat.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
He had some of the best reviews, and he actually
was able to pay for ten food entrepreneurs to go
to the academy because he just believed the foundation that
he learned for business with something that he wants to
give back to his neighbors. I mean, we have Jessica,
who is the who has a candle making company. She
suffers from infertility and during COVID went into a deep depression.
She bought a candle making and went from a hobby
(12:47):
to something she wanted to start as a business, but
she didn't know how to do that.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
And so we actually were online in twenty.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Twenty and she took our class and now she has
a really popular candle making studio. She's able to quit
her full time job and make this full time and
she's one of our facilitators for our new students. Even Adrian,
who is the Uber of Notaries in Nashville, so that
means she actually have other notaries that she sends out
to do notary services around the city.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
That means you have independent contractors and you have taxes
and things of that nature.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
All that was grown.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
From them being able to go through the academy and
Adrian was able to three x her income after taking
our class in that same calendar year and be able
to spend more time with her family, bought her son
a passport, send him on a school trip to Spain,
and was able to really build legacy for her family.
And so those are some of the success stories, but
also research helps us to really understand what about those
(13:41):
It makes them not a unicorn, right, but it's something
that we can make more predictable and understand what's necessary
for the foundations of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
That's a very good way of putting it. Yeah, you
have sixteen hundred potential stories, and yeah, you don't want
it to be all just a unicorn. After the break,
we hear from researcher Patrick Turner to explain how to
this in a study that creates results influential enough to
reshape both funding and policy. Welcome back. We've heard how
(14:14):
research partnerships from LEO have help programs prove their impact
and then scale. We met Shana Berkeley from Corner to
Corner in Nashville, who's bringing that same approach to her
academy for underestimated entrepreneurs. It's one thing to know a
program is working, but it's another to measure just how
far the ripple effects reach. Here is Patrick Turner, who's
an assistant professor of economics at the University of Notre
(14:35):
Dame and a researcher with LEO. So people come to
you with this, they know what their impact is, they
have a feeling about what's working right, and then they
have these stories and they need to design a program.
They're probably going to start by meeting with someone like
Frand and eventually be connected matchmaked with a researcher like you.
(14:58):
You were the researcher who worked on the Goodwill Excel Center,
and you know, they couldn't have known that these folks
were five years after they went through that program then
earning forty percent more than folks who hadn't gone through
the program. So how do you work with an organization
to come up with what's the right kind of research
to help show their impact? What happens after you are
(15:20):
introduced to Shana, because the match is good.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
You know, I always love hearing these stories that Shanea
shares of her participants in Marcus and Jessica and and
oftentimes a nonprofit knows a really good amount of information
about their graduates and particularly their successful graduates, and they
follow up with their participants over time and do surveys
of their alumni and such. But like you said, Lucas,
many times you don't know about the people they're not serving.
(15:44):
You don't know what would have happened to Marcus had
he not gone through the academy. You don't know what
would have happened to Jessica in her candle making business
had she not gone through the academy. And so that's
kind of where we step in, and that's kind of
the first part. And so when frans Team kind of
pivots and sends over a nonprofit to a research team,
we really start on this journey of kind of co
creating a research project together. We want to make sure
(16:07):
that any evaluation that we do provides actionable information to
the nonprofit, so that Shana can take what she learns
from our study and make concrete changes or double down
on what they're doing and actually take action. And so,
like I said, it's really this co creative process where
we dig in and try to identify the key questions
that the nonprofit has, What are the key questions in
the academic literature that would be useful for a broader understanding,
(16:30):
for us to make them, for us to move the
needle on, and then we really move along and design
the study. I ask a lot of questions about Shana
and the nonprofits I work with. How do people find
out about their program, how do they enroll? What does
it look like from a participant's perspective as they apply
and roll and participate in a program. And we think
through and try to identify ways in which we can
(16:53):
overlay a rigorous research evaluation on top of the work
that the nonprofit's already doing. In the case of Conative Want,
Shana mentioned that they already knew they had some neighbors
in Nashville who could benefit and were interested in the academy,
but they weren't able to serve everybody. They doubled down
and reached out and advertised their program to a broader
(17:13):
set of nationale residents to make sure that we have
a large enough set of individuals going through the program
as well as an experimental control group that are told no,
not yet, we don't quite yet have space for you
in this program. And I just want to take a
moment here to say that, like, we take the dignity
of the individuals going through that part of the process,
both the frontline program staff, but also the dignity of
(17:36):
the person applying for the program very seriously. And so
so we worked very closely with Shana and her team
to make sure that the language we were using around
randomization and consenting to the program and the study participation.
And so we designed these research partner you know partnerships
very closely, you know, co creating this together, and then
set up ways in which we can measure outcomes in
(17:58):
the long term to see how people like Marcus and
Jessica were doing well after they applied for the academy,
but also the Marcus and Jusica's that didn't get an
opportunity in the academy, so we can measure the effect
of the program. And that's really where we're at with
Shana right now, is waiting for the data to come
in and seeing how the experiences of her participants are
comparing to the experience of these other individuals.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Yeah, you can't serve everybody, and maybe that's a comfort
when doing this, but yeah, it's disturbing, right, So to
that point that you do need a control group, a
comparison group of some kind. And you know, these are
serious situations we're talking about where the example from Destination Home,
where you're able to prove their homeless prevention intervention worked
(18:40):
and that people who didn't take advantage of the program
were three times more likely to enter homelessness. This is
a serious consequences, right, So how do you talk to
the people that you're working with at these nonprofits to
assuage any concerns that come up around that or is
there any advice that you offer on it.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Really, what we're asking nonprofits to do is learn from
use the fact that they already have to say no
to people, either implicitly or explicitly, and be able to
learn from those no's right. And so in the example
of Destination Home and emergency financial assistance, it's you know,
there is a certain amount budgeted to be able to
provide emergency financial assistance, and oftentimes that budget doesn't meet
(19:20):
the need of the local community. And one way this
has played out for you know, for example, for a
destination home and homelessness prevention more broadly, is that once
we've gotten that number right the dollar of emergency financial
assistance generated more than two dollars in savings for the government,
then it's very easy to convince policymakers and other foundations
(19:41):
who are funding these programs to scale up and double
down on these investments. And so while you're turning people
away today, you know, a successful impact evaluation might have
the possibility of meaning you can serve more people in
the future. And I think you know, that's the hope
that we saw with Destination Home. It's certainly what we've
seen with Goodwill Excel centers. We've been able to take
this positive evidence and go to policy makers and say, look,
(20:03):
this investment that you're making in your local residence doesn't
just make sense from like a positive story of improving
people's lives, but it's actually a good investment for your
community to make these investments, and so you can scale
that up and serve more people in the long run.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Shana, I'll ask you about the control group at Corner
to corner. And I know you had mentioned you were
smaller at one point and that you've grown the application
pool using these marketing services that you work with Leo
on Can you tell us more about how that all
came about and like what you've learned from doing that
and increasing the application pool and how this conversation played out.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Absolutely, and so a lot of our initial ways of
marketing was really word of mouth. Sixty five percent of
our entrepreneurs enrolled because of word of mouth and our
research to help us to understand how many people we
needed to have in the comparison group in order for
it to be a really robust study and one that
had a lot of integrity and for us to be
able to really see what was working and what wasn't.
(21:06):
And so once they gave us that numbers, they also
gave us our marching order. So we started using social
media marketing, we started using in person going to all
the events. We just got better at our language really
explaining what was happening, what does randomization look like? Most
underestimated communities have been taken advantage of when it comes
to a lottery system. So a lot of resystems in
(21:26):
and of themselves are not bad, but when they are
manipulated and a lot of things if you look online
about schools and have lotteries, but it's actually just a
bunch of people who know what to do at the
right time or the right email. And so we have
been very intentional with our researchers about the integrity of
our study.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
My best friend didn't get in, you know, and I'm like,
I hated.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
For you, but it's actually a good story to just
let people know, Hey, listen, we send it to Notre Dame,
we send it to a third party.
Speaker 5 (21:53):
We don't have any say and who does and who doesn't.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And so it has also had a secondary effect of
building a no like in trust factor our community trust
our word when we say we don't have it. When
we say that, you know, they trust us to say, okay,
we know that you all have integrity, which is a
really important part of that community based work that we
do here.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
And so that was something that was really important to us.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
So we've scaled it using what you know for profits
do when they scale right. We use social media, we
use word of mouth, we did events, we went to
other people's events, we built partnerships, and we actually went
from having a wedding list of about seventy five people
to today we have a wedding list of three thy
fourteen people and we serve about We went from serving
(22:34):
about one hundred, so now we serve this this cohort
that just started. We started with three hundred and twelve people,
so we've been able to grow how many we've served.
But I mean with those tactics, we have thousands of
people on our wedding lists. We'll be getting through the
waiting list will after our study is well.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
I mean talk about demonstrating the need for it increasing
the waiting list.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
We all serve Middle Tennessee. So it's not national.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Literally is about if Nashville at our south and an
hour north is what we consider Middle Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
After the break, we'll hear how bringing staff into the
research process change the way Corner to Corner runs its programs,
and why asking the great research questions matters as much
as the answers welcome back. So far, we've seen how
research can validate what nonprofits are already doing and help
(23:28):
them grow. We also heard from Sheena Berkeley at Corner
to Corner about why and how she embraced this partnership
with LEO. Now, Shina talks about what it means to
bring her staff into the process and how that's shaping
the program along the way.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
What I think for an executive director, what we think
about mostly right is our staff, our program, and what
we are doing on the ground. All the research things
will kind of come to those later. But as we
started asking our research question, two things came up that
I thought was really interesting. One is that I made
sure my staff was really involved in the research project
it so they would have a saying and it wouldn't
(24:02):
be a top down but it's really a ground up experience.
And one of the things that we learned from that
was that we were we are making iterations in our program,
asked to study goals because there are questions that our researchers.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Were asking us.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
So I was like, huh, I don't know if I
can answer that fully, and so what are the things
that I can put in place to make that happen.
What are the programs, what are the the weekly calls,
what are the what things need to happen?
Speaker 5 (24:29):
And so it's already just made our program tighter because
we have eyes on us to say, okay, you know,
it's kind of like where your mom's watching You're a
better child.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
It's one of those things and stuff that has been
a really great way for our program to just become
world class without getting any other information back. And then
the second thing, it really forced us to say what
is our research question? And as we were talking to
our research team, we were reminded that our research question
is not if the comparison group.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
Are going to start businesses.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
If we know the history of blackm black Americans have
had to be entrepreneurial in order to survive in this
country as long as we have and to be able
to flourish on some level, So the question of entrepreneurship
was never on the table.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
In fact that our organization was.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Started because we were already entrepreneurial, but we were being
locked out to more traditional pathways to entrepreneurship and funding.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
And so if that isn't the question, then what is
the question?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Right?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
The question is are these particular topics working, is this
length of time working, are these particular facilitators working, are
these locations working? And so it makes you get into
the nitty gritty of your program to say are the
things that are the main thing.
Speaker 5 (25:32):
Actually doing the main thing.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
And so when you ask questions like that, it makes
your program really rise to the occasion. And I have
seen that people have started to take notice, even before
we have any research back. They have seen the efforts
that we have put into our research and those have
been awarded and applauded, and it really is making our
staff a better organization overall.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I mean, we're not
there yet. We don't know what the results are going
to say. But in your ideal world, what do you
hope it's going to happen at the end of all this.
Are you hoping to you know, grow your funding? Are
you hoping to grow the number of people you serve?
What happens in the best possible outcome, the.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Best possible outcome, Yes to all those that I would
really sum it up in this way and say, I
want to make Nashville the number one place for underestimated
entrepreneurs to start a small business. That means that we
have the ecosystem. That means we have brick and mortar space,
that means we have the funding, that means we have
the traffic. That means we have the education and the
partners like all of that is a yes. And so
(26:32):
that's why partnering with LEO has been such a godsend
and important and important parts of our strategy for a
longer term, for our longer term mission, right because not
only is it free, I mean you do still have
to pay for the program support. So it's not like oh, everythanks,
Really you still have to put some skin in the game.
You sued to have to understand how you're moving that
conversation forward. But the thing that I needed as an
(26:55):
addecutive director to say yes to this and to feel
comfortable and confident was partnership, support, the guidance through this
process of research. And you know, I always joke and
be like, at the end of this day, I'm gonna
be a researcher because I know all the terms, I
have faced, all the problems, and so not today may
not hire me, but I know enough to get along.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
And then also I have confidence in the research.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
If they tell me something doesn't work, I trust that
they've looked at it in a three sixty view and
that that doesn't work, and I'm able to put that down.
And even sometimes they offer me really great suggestions of
how to do it.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
Differently, and so having a partner like.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Leo to say, hey, here is what we know for sure,
here's what we're seeing. Here we hear your heart and
what you're trying to face, and here's the ways to
solve that. It really is invaluable. And so we want
to be the number one place for underestimated entrepreneurs to
start small businesses. We want to help other nonprofits who
want to do this for their community, and we want
to show funders what's necessary because sometimes they ask questions
(27:54):
and don't even know what the answer is going to be,
like can you show me research? I'm like, I mean,
I can show you a lot of stuff, like what
do you want to see? It's going to be able
to that conversation in a way that feels fruitful and
still seeing the humanity in our neighbors and them not
just being a number of success or failure. Really is
is what we are So in our studies specifically, not
only do we study the finances of our entrepreneurs, but
the social determinants of health. Do they feel like to
(28:14):
have community, are they a veteran? Do they stay connected?
That's important to us as well, and so those things
have been helpful. And the last thing I'll say is
I just want to remind people that the time will
pass anyway. When they told me three years ago that
this is going to be a four and a half
year study, I'm like, I don't even know if I'm
to be working here four years.
Speaker 5 (28:31):
Maybe I'll hit the power ball and I'll be retired.
It has to happen yet, friends, So that time is
going to pass.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Anyway, So why not during that time passing really be
doing something that you can build you up for legacy.
And if you are a founder and you want to
move out and have a legacy for your nonprofit, what
a great thing to leave behind, which is some really
rigorous research to be able.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
To keep that going long term.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Patrick, maybe a hard question for you, I mean, going
into it the nonprofits, you're trying to decide are these
things working? Do you ever come across the time where
something isn't working and you're finding that in the results,
And how is that play out? And then on the
other side of it, how are when things are working,
how is it that people can use this information to it?
(29:16):
As was put earlier, sort of it more wesearch equals
more money, you.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Know, like I said, this is kind of a it's
a partnership, right, And so when we do find evidence
that doesn't suggest the same level of promise like that
we showed with Destination Home or good Will Excel Center,
I think the next question is why why why aren't
we seeing the effects that we saw a lot of
times when we're picking the right project. We think the
program's doing something right. The nonprofit has these success stories,
(29:43):
and so why might it be that we're not finding
that same impact when we're looking through a rigorous evaluation,
And so we ask questions like was it not properly targeted?
You know, did the program not go to the type
of people that might benefit the most from it? And
so we do some heterogeneady analysis to understand where, you know,
if the program wasn't working overall, maybe there were some
types of participants that benefited more or less than others,
(30:06):
and try to understand if it was a targeting question.
We try to dig into the data on program implementation
and maybe the program wasn't working because it wasn't well implemented,
or they know, if it was a say like a
case management program, maybe the case management wasn't delivered to
the level of intensity that they might have expected when
they were designing the program model. In my own work,
(30:28):
I think that's played out in terms of helping a
partner in the sense that we were tracking some of
that program implementation data while the project was going along,
and it was a program that was designed to kind
of provide services to folks early after reaching out to
this particular agency, and the data were showing us that
people weren't engaging with the program until thirty forty five
(30:50):
days after they originally contacted the agency. And so as
a part of that kind of data analysis and tracking
program outcomes, we were able to kind of coach the
agency to reach out and kind of improve the program implementation,
make sure they're reaching out and engaging with the clients
who are interested in the program at an earlier time period.
And so I think it's a continual learning process and
(31:13):
then digging in and trying to understand what might have
gone on that led to the outcomes that we saw.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
If there's someone listening and they're thinking, oh, I think
I do want to do this, what's a good piece
of advice for folks who are considering this.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
It takes a certain level of vulnerability for a nonprofit
to allow us researchers to shine a light on what
they're doing, and so, you know, be brave. I think
the thing that I just love about Shanea is her
you know, like Fran mentioned when we were talking about
the right Partner, she believes in the people that she serves.
(31:46):
She believes in her organization what they're doing, and you know,
I think it takes courage to kind of allow us,
for her to open the books and allow us in
and observe that, and so just trust in that process,
and I think it's a great, great way to learn
and make sure that what you're doing is really having impact.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Yeah, thanks for that. So, Fran, if folks are interested
in this, there's a place to reach out. Can you
kind of walk us through how they go about reaching
out and what would happen after that?
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Yeah, thank you. I think what Patrick said about it
requiring deep bravery to put yourself under the microscope is
really true. I also think sort of contemplating whether or
not we should start doing rigorous research is a big, hairy,
complicated question, and the reality is it's probably very specific
(32:36):
to your organization and the type of work that you
do and what you're trying to achieve what worked for
Shane and corner to corner might not have worked for Goodwill,
might not work for the City of Rochester. And so
part of this is really just taking the first step
and saying, like, I need to learn more and ask
questions that are specific to me and the organization that
I lead and operate. And so that's really the purpose
(32:59):
of that first call that you would schedule with Leo
is like, let's stop talking theoretical and actually get down
to brass tacks and learn about each other and see
if this could be a right fit. That process evolves
if it is a good fit, to thinking through the
high level details of a potential project. What program do
you want to study? What outcomes do you want to measure?
(33:20):
Is there a pathway to randomization? Do we have a
large enough sample size? All of those things? And then
organizations complete the process by coming to Notre Dame for
a discovery day and sharing their project idea with the
Patrick Turners of the world and with LEO leadership to
understand if this would be a good fit, and then
they get accepted into a cohort, they get paired with
(33:41):
a research team. My team really fades into the background
and we go off and find new partners in projects again.
So my biggest piece of advice would be to say,
don't be afraid to have that first conversation and see
if this could be a good fit. If it is amazing,
it's not, Maybe it is in a couple of years
(34:01):
and you know more about what needs to be true
for it to be the right fit.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Next City, the
show about change makers and their stories. Together we can
spread good ideas from one city to the next city.
This sponsored episode was produced in partnership with the Wilson
Chien Lab for Economic Opportunities. If you're interested in learning
more about how to work with LEO, visit Partner with
Leo dot org. That's partner with l EO dot org.
(34:41):
Thank you to our guests Sheena Berkeley of Corner to Corner,
Patrick Turner from the Wilson Chen Lab for Economic Opportunities,
and Fran Gallagher, also from LEO. This episode is based
on a Next City webinar. You can watch the full
conversation by visiting Nextity dot org slash webinars. Our audio
producer is Silvana Alcala, our show producers Maggie Bowles, our
execut Their producer is Ryan Tillodson, and I'm Lucas Grinley,
(35:02):
executive director for Next City. We'd love to hear any
feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to email us
at info atnexcity dot org and if you haven't already,
subscribed to the show on Apple, Spotify, good Pods, or
anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
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