Improving indigenous community outcomes through a “Community Capability Uplift Metrics” improvement initiative that explicitly connects funded activities to individual benefits through to long-term community capability uplift outcomes
The problem
Current government funding for provision of services to indigenous communities is based on activity and output rather than benefits and outcomes.
That is, government agencies fund initiatives based on “number of widgets processed” (activity and outputs) rather than on how the “widgets” being funded contribute to community capability uplift (benefits and outcomes).
The result is a disconnect between government funding and stated aims of sustained community capability uplift.
The solution
To address this, what’s needed is a framework of metrics that will guide the selection and measurement of government funding for services to indigenous communities that prompts providers to focus their efforts on creating high-quality and robust support for sustained community capability uplift.
What’s needed is a framework that uses explicit requirements and nudges to shift providers towards focusing on identifying and proving the real benefits their activities create, rather than stopping at the simple provision of services of indeterminate value.
To the best of our knowledge there is nothing of this type that exists at present.
We need to work together to create this framework.
The project
The aim is to create a community-lead project to investigate, design and create a funding metrics framework explicitly tied to community capability uplift goals.
This will be a multi-year project involving the development of an innovative and robust framework through extensive consultation with key stakeholders, careful design by specialist experts, metrics that strongly encourage the required improvement, and academically rigorous testing.
More Information.
Right now, this is just an idea.
We need to bring together the people and organsiations that can refine the idea and turn it into a project to create and implement a framework.
| Community Uplift Metrics – Concept Outline | Further detail on the concept, the project required to create it, and some potential ideas of metrics. | Community Uplift Metrics – Concept Outline.docx. |