Defining the Problem
June 28, 2023
We reviewed the two focus statements that we had selected and considered ways to rephrase them to get away from the structured template that we had started with. We were looking for flexibility that would allow us to embrace multiple nonprofit organizations that operate with a focus similar to ours. We thought that one of the two focus areas would drop off, but that didn’t happen. So, we adopted these:
We aim to address lack of access to mental health services for teens and young adults from underserved populations because it aligns with our values of dignity, equity and community.
We aim to address environmental justice issues as they impact people in frontline communities around the North Shore because it aligns with our commitment to dignity and equity of all people.
We went deeper to define the problem that we wanted to solve by brainstorming “problem statements” that would address:
What is the problem and why does it matter?
What is the best fit for our group’s demand for effective solutions and tolerance for risk?
Whether the problem identified has been ratified by our or others’ lived experiences?
Have we identified our intended beneficiaries?
Are we able to describe what really concerns us about the problem?
And we came up with the following problem statements:
Mental Health: Increasingly, teens and young adults are experiencing mental health challenges. There are many barriers for teens and young adults to access mental health care, including stigma, parental/school support, cost, time commitment, and lack of available providers. Given these challenges, the problems could get worse, especially for those from marginalized communities. If mental health needs go unaddressed, this population will be isolated from their community which has long term effects for young adults, their family, friends and broader community.
Environmental Justice: Increasingly, development and urban revitalization projects don’t employ environmental experts or consultants to evaluate large scale projects before they are implemented. This leads to poor health and quality of life outcomes for generations of people in lower income/marginalized communities.
We reviewed various approaches of nonprofit organizations:
Directly providing goods and services such as women’s shelters, food pantries, health clinics.
Supporting research and development of knowledge such as cancer research by medical schools, policy research by think tanks.
Changing government or corporate policies such as campaigns to mitigate climate change, living wage campaigns.
Advocacy, movement-building, and changing societal mindsets and systems.
We talked about examples of each approach, the timeline of change coming from each, the different visibility of results from each, and risk that each approach carries of successful and unsuccessful impact. For example, in the area of mental health for teens and young adults, we considered counselling in schools for at-risk students, vs. suicide prevention training workshops for adults in under-served communities, vs. a campaign for mental health coverage under health insurance. Five of us voted to favor the direct service approach and one of us chose an advocacy approach.
And we reviewed ways that nonprofit organizations seek support from the community, which includes time, talent, treasure and ties. We know that our journey will end up giving “treasure” meaning money to one or more nonprofits, but we discussed ways that we could enhance a gift of money such as volunteering for the organization(s) we give to, doing pro bono work for such organizations—including organizations that we don’t give money to, and connecting organizations with other resources to which we might have access.