Systems and Programs: Moving from Enemies to Friends

Over the past few years, there has been an increasing emphasis on the need for “systems change” to achieve large-scale social impact. As someone deeply embedded in research and evaluation at the systems-level, I fundamentally believe that addressing complex problems requires system-level solutions. An increasing emphasis on systems – including a greater focus on multi-stakeholder …

Keeping Youth Out of the Juvenile Justice System: Creating Policy and System Change

  By Lauren Gase, Spark Policy Institute and Taylor Schooley, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Each year, roughly one million young people are arrested in the United States. Contact with the justice system is not only a public safety issue – research shows that it can lead to a range of negative health …

Our 2015 Year in Review

What a year it’s been! No doubt, 2015 had its ups and downs, from the ground-breaking Paris Agreement to address climate change, to continuing gun violence; from marriage equality to global refugee crises; from “The Dress” to the latest installment of the Star Wars saga. Here at Spark, we had some amazing moments – providing …

Working in Fields

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how different it looks to work in a field instead of alone. And no, I don’t mean out in a field of flowers (though that sounds lovely). Rather, I’m referring to a field of organizations trying to cause the same type of change, though not necessarily in collaboration …

Presenting Data Effectively

In my job as a Policy and Communication Manager for Spark, I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can translate the great research we do here into actionable products. When not presented effectively, data can be mostly noise – too much information to remember, interpret and use to make decisions. But, when …

How to Build a Health Care Movement

What happens when 14 community organizations, two foundations and several communications experts come together to change how the public thinks about access to health care? You build a movement. Project Health Colorado (PHC) was a groundbreaking three-year Colorado Trust initiative to build public will for access to health. PHC involved 14 community organizations that used …

Leading Social Change in the Context of Political Change

This month’s election results were hyped up in a lot of ways – a tsunami, a landslide, a bloodbath, a tidal-wave. Throughout the country, power dynamics shifted and Republicans replaced many Democratic incumbents, protected their own seats, and won open seats. Here in Colorado, where Spark is based, we may have had more of a …

Scaling Change: Market Forces are Part of the Solution

I’ve been thinking about this issue of how to scale social innovation a lot lately. When I was at the D.C. Presidio Fellowship week, we talked with the Social Innovation Fund. Their focus is on mobilizing public and private resources to find and grow the best community solutions. They identify evidence-based strategies that can make …

We’re all in this together: Why partnership makes advocacy work better

We recently wrapped up an evaluation of a national advocacy campaign, where advocacy organizations were funded in states throughout the country to push forward a common agenda. The evaluation findings highlighted how different advocacy organizations bring different capacities to the table. While technical assistance can expand that capacity, it can’t change the reality that no …

Systems Transformation for Underserved Populations – The Colorado Daylight Project

Systems transformation, which we explore further in our Resources for Igniting Systems-Wide Change Blog, can be applied to just about any type of population with a defined need. In this week’s blog, we’ll explore how one project is approaching systems transformation for a particularly underserved population: the deaf and hard of hearing in Colorado. This …

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