{"id":2730,"date":"2021-02-15T21:56:22","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T21:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.humanepa.org\/?p=2730"},"modified":"2021-02-15T21:57:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T21:57:47","slug":"redefining-not-predefining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.humanepa.org\/?p=2730","title":{"rendered":"Redefining, Not Predefining"},"content":{"rendered":"
by: Karel Minor, CEO\/President of Humane Pennsylvania<\/em><\/h5>\n

There is a risk in charitable service work to decide what people need and who needs it without actually asking them.\u00a0 That makes sense since as service delivery organizations, we are generally experts at what we do and we have the experience to think we know who needs that vital service.\u00a0 The only problem is we are often wrong.<\/p>\n

While charities are different from for-profit businesses in crucial ways, imagine how well a great business would survive if it didn\u2019t seek out a better idea of what their customers wanted and instead just kept giving them the same, great old thing.\u00a0 You don\u2019t need to imagine too hard.\u00a0 Just think of Blockbuster Video.\u00a0 Their business model no longer worked in the world of digital access to entertainment and they didn\u2019t change to adapt to new consumer desires.\u00a0 And now they are gone.<\/p>\n

Some businesses do adapt and change to pursue the preferences of their customers.\u00a0 Netflix started as a company that mailed(!) you DVD\u2019s(!!) of movies through a tiered subscription service(!!!).\u00a0 Can you even \u00a0imagine now waiting to get an envelope with a physical copy of a movie in it based on whether you paid enough to have one, two or three movies at a time?\u00a0 That would be a ridiculous\"\" model now, but it helped kill off Blockbuster.<\/p>\n

Netflix was almost killed off when video on demand made it possible by faster internet speeds.\u00a0 But instead of being the next Blockbuster, they figured out what people wanted next.\u00a0 They became a giant of today, not a relic of yesterday.\u00a0 Imagine if they had just stuck to their guns and their old business model without surveying the needs of the marketplace.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lesson I take in my charitable world for two reasons: 1. Netflix figured out what people wanted and how to give it to them, and 2. Netflix didn\u2019t abandon one model to chase the next new model.\u00a0 They transitioned to a new one while still embracing the old one effectively.\u00a0 It turns out the still mail out DVDs.\u00a0 Who knew?\u00a0 A for-profit company may go out of business when their product becomes obsolete, like the whale oil companies went out of business with the rise of petroleum alternatives.\u00a0 Or if they are lucky, they can transition into new markets, like Netflix did.<\/p>\n

Charities face issues of obsolescence, too.\u00a0 The \u201cMarch of Dimes Movement\u201d is an old standard example of how a charity can respond to changes.\u00a0 The March of Dimes was founded to fight polio.\u00a0 When a vaccine allowed the US to completely overcome the disease, they had to decide what their purpose was since they couldn\u2019t exist to fight a disease that no longer existed.\u00a0 They turned their focus to fighting birth defects, and still exist with that focus today.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, charities are often bad at surveying what the real needs of the day are, as well as who needs them. \u00a0We say we don\u2019t sell products, we provide critical services, so we don\u2019t always learn from the lessons of the for-profit world.\u00a0\u00a0 We are sometimes so wrapped up in our work we don\u2019t look outward to see what is changing in our industry.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t make a charity bad, it just means we are kind of bad at doing that.\u00a0 What I think is bad is when we make the mistake of not actually asking people what they need and how they need it delivered to be most effective.<\/p>\n

When we decide in advance what the need is and who needs it, we are likely to provide the wrong services or services that are right, but delivered in the wrong way.\u00a0 We might be right to think this or that group needs this or that service.\u00a0 Or we might be wrong, and we may be ineffective or end up applying Band-Aids when a cure or, better yet, a prevention is within our grasp.<\/p>\n

How do you determine what people – or animals – need, you ask?\"\"<\/p>\n

Humane Pennsylvania just conducted a full survey sent to every one of the 30,000 households in the City of Reading to determine the needs of pets and their caretakers, thanks to the generosity of the Giorgi Family Foundation.\u00a0 The survey, which was developed with the assistance of experts from Penn State University, provides an extremely high confidence interval and low margin of error.\u00a0 We are still crunching the numbers with the help of experts from Albright College (we love higher ed!) and will be sharing them soon.<\/p>\n

The goal was to see what the community thought they<\/em> needed, what they felt they didn\u2019t have access to, or what pet related issues they felt caused stress for them or their family.\u00a0 We asked everyone, not just \u201cpoor\u201d people or this group or that group.\u00a0 We asked all<\/em> people.<\/p>\n

The answers were surprising.\u00a0 A lot of it made sense.\u00a0 People at lower incomes shared that they had a harder time affording the cost of food and veterinary care.\u00a0 But we also saw that a large number of people at higher income levels, levels which are not generally targeted by \u201ccharity\u201d veterinary services, expressed concern of these costs, too.\u00a0 And that these costs had resulted in an inability to pay for or to have to choose between pets and family necessities.\u00a0 It turned out far more people may need help than we thought or were even attempting to help. To quote Big Bird, \u201cAsking questions is a good way to find things out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, this has served to reinforce the work Humane Pennsylvania has been doing to ensure that meaningful access to veterinary care and other supports are available to all, through a continuum of services.\u00a0 Until now, we just didn\u2019t have the data to prove it.\u00a0 To quote a t-shirt, \u201cIn God we trust. All others bring data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Humane Pennsylvania is dedicated to helping animals and people, in old time-tested ways like adoption and in new ones like community access to veterinary care, supported by fact and data.\u00a0 We try to do it by redefining<\/em> the problems we seek to overcome, not by predefining<\/em> the problems and solutions.\u00a0 We do it because we know it\u2019s the best way to help the most animals and people, in the most cost effective and impactful way.\u00a0 We know we can love animals and hug puppies and kittens, and also be rigorous and face ever-changing realities and needs in our community.\u00a0 We think doing one well requires doing the other well, too.<\/p>\n

We also do it because we want our organization, and the entire animal welfare sector, to go the way of Netflix, not Blockbuster Video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by: Karel Minor, CEO\/President of Humane Pennsylvania There is a risk in charitable service work to decide what people need and who needs it without actually asking them.\u00a0 That makes sense since as service delivery organizations, we are generally experts at what we do and we have the experience to think we know who needs …
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