Measurable Impacts

There are some fancy formulas that nonprofits use to advertise just how good of a job they’re doing. I’ve researched them, weighed whether or not if it’s worth the time spent to calculate them, and decided, it’s largely not. You could attempt to place a fiscal value on the goods and services we provide and simply put, it wouldn’t be accurate, nor would it portray the true impact of our programs.

One such formula, “social value,” is a metric that puts a dollar value on how much social or civic good a nonprofit generates. Let’s take our gardening programs at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, West Central Integrated Treatment Facility, and Burruss Correctional Training Center. Each of these programs creates some form of social value that you could presumably assign a dollar amount to. We’re growing fresh fruits and vegetables and pollinator-friendly plants. That generates economic good. We’re beautifying the landscape. That generates social good. We’re teaching incarcerated men and women how to grow their own nutritious food. That generates physical good. We’re also preventing recidivism – while nearly 80% of released inmates will commit another crime in their lifetime and return to prison, inmates who participate in HeartBound’s programs have a recidivism rate in the single digits. We’re saving taxpayers money by preventing crime and incarceration. That’s a financial good.

Throw it all together in a formula and you have a metric to see how HeartBound is creating social value. I know plenty of fancy foundations and data-driven groups would love to advertise how they’re giving to organizations that are producing x dollars in social value, but a simple statistic would dilute our true worth. Plus, I don’t want to waste my time or our organization’s resources paying for these fancy formulas so we can simply say, “Look at us!”

Instead, I’ll just tell it like it is.

If you’ve followed along with this newsletter, you’ve heard stories of Tom, a young man I once taught at Burruss Correctional Training Center. Tom participated in a multitude of HeartBound’s classes – art, gardening, dog-training, Bible study. He wasn’t always the best student; he often struggled with drug addiction and practiced different religions. But eventually, he was released from prison (also thanks to HeartBound’s help in securing him housing placement post-prison) and turned to HeartBound for help.

When he walked out of prison, he had almost nothing to his name. No birth certificate, no bank account, no cell phone. Hard to succeed in the twenty-first century without those things. So, on my weekends this summer, I would pick up Tom and take him to a restaurant, allowing him to try new, exotic foods while I showed him how to open a bank account, write a resume, apply for a job. Within days, Tom was employed, learning how to drive a car, and depositing money into a savings account every month.

Slowly, the weekly visits to Tom began to peter out. The phone calls and texts became less frequent. Our near daily check-ins became weekly, then monthly, then only on holidays. Our chaplain, John Richardson, asked me if I had heard from Tom recently. I told him bluntly, “No.”

And that’s okay. That’s how it’s meant to be. If I’m not hearing from Tom, that means he’s doing well, that he’s figuring life out on his own. Sure, I’d love for him to let me know he’s doing well, but if he isn’t calling and texting me, he doesn’t need me, and that, friends, is good. He’s learning how to live a normal life.

You can imagine how my heart began to race when Tom called me out of the blue this past Sunday. A Sunday call, something had to be wrong. I prayed it wasn’t a relapse or rearrest.

I was moving a couch but took the time to answer. “Yo, Spence!” His tone told me everything was okay. Phew. “I got two new roommates at my house. One of them just got done with a 20-year bid [prison sentence]. The other was a juvie like me. They don’t have resumes or bank accounts or anything, can you come down here and help them?”

I smiled. Of course I could.

That’s the only metric I care about. You can’t place any value on it, nor can you report it to foundations. No fancy formula will calculate how much that interaction was worth.

But I’ll tell you, every investment made in Tom, every hour we spent driving to his prison, was worth its weight in gold…or perhaps I should say, souls.  

No metric needed.

Have a blessed day.

Spencer