The Vision
The Union of Concerned Scientists lobbies for science-based action on some of humanity’s most pressing issues. In a major shift for an organization that has historically worked at the national level, UCS is now engaging local groups of scientists, activists, and decision-makers to make substantive grassroots change.
The Challenges
How does an organization effectively bring a local engagement program to scale? And how does leadership know the program is working? How do they ensure that equity is at the forefront when confronting issues that disproportionately affect people of color when these populations have rarely had a seat at the table?
Ready to Talk?Results so Far
We worked with UCS to establish six key performance indicators and 15 supporting metrics to evaluate the growth of the local engagement program across the U.S, including an equity-specific KPI.
The Work
Provoc gathered information from several sources to best understand UCS’ goals and landscape:
• Survey of internal staff and supporting analysis
• Survey of like organizations and supporting analysis
• Day-long workshop on KPIs based on landscape analysis, brainstorming, and feedback sessions
• Equity-specific workshop
• Audit of internal systems, databases, and processes
• Three rounds of meetings to review and iterate on KPIs and supporting metrics
• A formal implementation guide with final KPIs/metrics and steps for implementation including changes to existing processes, new processes, updates to data structures and collection and key decisions left to be made by internal staff
