I’ve been listening-in on a daily community call hosted by an early childhood development non-profit. Each day, a presenter shared his/ her research or encouraged participation in an event or program that could benefit the children, families, and/or teachers and school leadership. Several in the audience asked questions, complimented the presenter, or offered suggestions in the chat. It seems that people genuinely want to help, but how much momentary enthusiasm translates into systemic execution? “One-off” moments rarely last, and great intentions are often washed out by the busyness of daily operations.
I thought two ideas could be useful and suggested them to the executive director of the non-profit.
1) Bounded Theme Categorization (Overcoming Fragmented Inertia) The organization collects an incredible repository of presenter materials. What if we clustered these into no more than five core macro-themes to bound the community’s focus? Once a quarter, we could invite the network to opt into a specific theme-based sub-group. These cohorts could self-organize and collectively drive specific pieces of the puzzle forward, turning passive listeners into active collaborators.
2) Balancing “Discovery” with “Implementation” Programming The organization’s current doctorate dissertation series is fantastic for showcasing new discovery. To maximize its impact, we could balance the weekly calendar. If Wednesday remains “Open Mic,” the other days could explicitly contrast Research/Discovery with Successful Implementation Frameworks. Showing the operational “how-to” behind successful models gives the audience a practical playbook to replicate.
I received……….Silence.
Were they bad ideas?
Actually, the better question is “How do we make the benefit bigger than the cost to encourage action?”
Using Thomas Sowell’s framework — decisions follow incentives and constraints — the silence makes total sense.
- Idea 1 will add to the team’s work (sorting content, theme-clustering, and communicating with people) with questionable impact (if people do it) and benefiting the community vs. herself/ immediate team.
- Idea 2 may be even more work to recruit different kinds of presenters and ensure who/ what’s presented is truly valuable, effective to the audience.
With that lens, it’s seen as rational behavior rather than character judgement.
- What might lower the cost of idea 1? if someone volunteers to do the work.
- What might raise the incentive for idea 2? if something the organization can get credit for.
Moreover, this isn’t unique to nonprofits or education — it happens when a change initiative gets ignored because it might cost someone’s job, a habit doesn’t change because convenience wins over knowledge, or a public initiative stalls because the process takes too long. Altruism may open the door but it doesn’t carry you through.
What change would you like to see — What incentive or constraint can you alter?
Part of the Growing Up Well series — Building Heads, Hearts, and Futures