It’s one thing to hear the details of stories; it’s another to know what those details are telling you. Design solutions for problems unveiled by stories.
It happened again. Hearing someone’s story shifted my perspective and presence. At first, as I sat with a concerned neighbor at a coffee shop to hear her concerns about several issues related to homelessness in our community, it felt like just one among myriad conversations with kind-hearted people over the years.
But then, I learned that she had her own story of homelessness. As I heard more of her story, it added weight to her concerns about the community’s overall response to the needs of homeless neighbors, and the specific challenges some organizations seem to be having in their response. I don’t ever want to get over how stories change my perspective and change me.
Whether you are reading this Context series with your neighborhood, a nonprofit, or a community issue in mind, the principles remain the same. The most important one is:
We respect the story by being available to it, not assuming onto it.
In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I encouraged openness to the stories of people and communities. To fully understand the story, you must want to get it. This also holds true for what to do with what you come to know from the stories.
Because I have previously written about a process for problem-defining and solution-designing, I’m not going to rewrite that content here. You can find those articles at CharityTracker.com/blog. The exact links are below.
What You See (Part 1): The Problem
What You See (Part 2): The Solution
As you begin processing your neighbors’ stories, I encourage you to pretend you are starting from scratch. Set aside what you think you know for a little while. Those ideas are lenses and filters that can keep you from seeing and hearing what you need to. You’ll pick up what you believe you know later.
Now it’s time to sit alone thinking about, and in conversation with others about, the stories you have heard and the notes and surveys you have taken. Ask questions of who, what, where, when, why, and how, known as the 5 Ws and an H.
What are you asking these questions about? Everything. You've gathered a lot of story content through conversations and surveys. What you do now is like taking a slow walk, with elevated observation skills, attentive to what you see and hear.
It’s one thing to hear the details of the stories; it’s another to know what those details tell you about problems and how they guide you to solutions.
So, slow down, take a few deep breaths, and get ready to learn abundantly more about how to serve, support, and empower the people and communities based on what you have heard from them.
Patterns and Connections Identified
When we look for patterns and connections, we unpack and unfold what we have heard from the stories. Chunks and trunks of information don’t necessarily guide you in your work. It can feel weighty and overwhelming at first, until patterns and connections start to emerge.
Picture going into your grandmother’s attic or garage where you find boxes and storage trunks full of papers, photos, and other pieces from your family’s story. You pull them out, one by one, each piece holding some level of significance.
When seeking patterns in the story of a neighbor or community, note:
Now, consider in what ways do the patterns you have found connect to and impact one another?
Causation is a way of hearing the problem story. This goes beyond logical order and simply knowing the problem. Seeking cause asks “why” problems are there. “What caused this?” Don’t assume a single source. These are the layers of information a story can provide when listened to well.
For example:
A single mother, by the 20th of each month, experiences a financial shortfall. The childcare schedule makes it hard for her to pick up extra shifts. When her shifts get cut, or rent comes due before payday, she covers that gap with a credit card, and the interest makes the next month tighter.
“Make a budget” would miss almost all of this. Each cause calls for a different fix: a childcare subsidy, asking her landlord to move the rent due date, steadier hours, and a plan to pay off the card. Because the causes are linked, fixing one of them, like the rent date, also relieves pressure on the others.
This mother may need you to help her see the options and even have the necessary conversations to break the cycle that has developed.
Don’t forget strengths, resources, assets, and relationships. In Part 1 of this Context series, I told the story of a neighborhood in Boston's West End that was demolished in the late 1950s and rebuilt with mostly higher-end apartments. The neighborhood was demolished because it was physically deteriorating and had sanitation and rodent issues. It was a low-income community considered to be “slums,” and the needs were absolutely immense, and something needed to happen. The hard data said it just needed to go.
What they didn’t take into consideration was the weave of the community relationships as a life-sustaining asset. How the community navigated life together was also torn from the lives of around 12,000 residents. How they made ends meet and made sure their elderly neighbors were okay was literally taken down with a wrecking ball.
You may need to have more conversations to fill in gaps and gain more understanding of what you’ve seen from the surveys and heard from stories. Missing or unclear information can lead you down the wrong path when creating solutions. If you still have questions, ask them.
As the stories you have heard from your neighbor or community of neighbors unfold, don’t be too quick to toss out what doesn't seem to matter in the moment. What you set aside as not very significant may eventually connect to something else you find along the way. Like putting together a puzzle with extra pieces, don’t toss anything out until the full picture is formed.
Problems Recognized and Defined
What have you been missing because of assumptions? Don’t focus on what you believe you know; listen for what you don’t. What you believe the problem to be may be fully accurate. But there’s a higher chance you’ll find what you know to be on a continuum somewhere between partly right and completely off base.
If you don’t understand something you hear or read, ask more questions, if you can. It can be something like this:
“When you shared that you couldn’t get a job, can you tell me more about that?”
You are asking your neighbor for more details to provide you with more understanding. Think of it like a painting with added strokes, colors, details, and layers. The more you have, the more you can see the full picture of what they are experiencing.
What seems like the problem on the surface may be only a symptom, or it could be the tip of the iceberg. The point here is to see what the information you are learning is pointing to that needs to be solved.
Some of what you hear from neighbors can be rough and hard to hear. Let’s acknowledge that. They may need to say it, and you and others may need to hear it. An ancient question posed by a man named Job can also provide some wise guidance on how to receive responses from neighbors in deep crisis:
“Do you think that you can reprove words, when the speech of a despairing man is wind?”
Being open to the problems may also create tension with a tightly held worldview. Your politics, your faith, your previous conclusions about this neighbor, neighborhood, or issue could be off, or just plain wrong. Are you open to that possibility? This kind of openness at the start of problem-defining creates the atmosphere for more understanding to come in. Then, when you assess and add what you previously held as the problem, you can contrast and compare.
If the factory where someone once worked has closed and the skills used there are no longer applicable to the work in that community, the problem isn’t “I can’t get a job,” it’s “I need training for a skill that is employable in this community.” The other option is finding where to move based on that person’s current capacity to be employed, and then figuring out how to move there.
Being open to the problems is being open to what current reality is. That is often not a single issue or layer. Multiple problems don’t add up; they multiply. It’s now multiplication with a variety of factors. That becomes complexity that must be understood and discerned, which can take time.
Be okay with sitting with an emerging understanding. Defining problems with honesty and clarity is paramount to creating solutions that work.
Solutions Designed
Being open to possible solutions is being open to what can be. Think about sitting in a room where the only thing you have access to for solutions is what you have done before. We don’t want to be in that room. You are limited here.
I’m inviting you to “purposeful disruption”, which I’ve written about in an article with that title. If you don’t like change, the word disruption can seem monstrous. That’s a fear-based mindset that can be adjusted and needs to be adjusted to grow personally and design solutions.
Put previously applied solutions for the problem you seek to solve in their own corner for a period of time. You can access them later, but the aim is to make yourself mentally and emotionally available to other possibilities. Sometimes our approaches are so tight and structured that nothing new can get in: no new ideas, new people, new pathways, or new resources.
What follows may be a different kind of language and approach than you are accustomed to, but please give it a chance. Physically, or with your eyes closed and in your mind, move into another room that feels more open than the one you’re in, maybe with windows. Have those windows open and a breeze blowing through. What’s your favorite landscape? Maybe imagine yourself seated there.
Loosen up, open up, ponder the problems being faced, and see what solutions begin to emerge. Have others join you in conversation about potential solutions and watch what happens. Collaboration in the development of ideas is powerful!
Time can be a weighty feature in this work of response to problems. Don’t expect to find all of the answers immediately. More often than not, solving large problems happens a few pieces at a time, over an extended time, through multiple conversations.
Emergencies require more speed and risk. A family facing eviction is an emergency problem to be solved. But the solution is not the same for everyone because the stories are different. For instance, there is a difference between the threat of a first eviction and someone with a history of evictions.
Beware of letting urgency drive. Urgency creates hyperdrive, which can lack insight and wisdom. Take a breath, get the neighbor to take a breath, and let the full story guide what’s next. Be a stabilizer. This will be the best atmosphere from which to find the needed solutions.
Partnerships Established
None of this story capturing, problem defining, or solution designing should be done 100% alone. Some of the processing above should be done while you sit in silence and stillness with what you have learned. The farther you go along in this process, the more partnerships you should find being defined and developed.
Here are a few questions to lead you to probable partnerships in some or all of the phases:
Some of these answers will be surfaced in your asset mapping if that was part of your process, as mentioned in Part 2 of this series.
Technology partnerships can also help here. One of them is AI. I use AI to explore and develop ideas. Don’t depend on AI for the whole process, but don’t be afraid to use it as a tool for helping brainstorm and design solutions, partnership suggestions, and agreements.
Speaking of agreements, make sure everyone working together knows what they are doing. Prevent unnecessary duplication, confusion, and conflict by talking through who does what, how, and when. This will most likely need to be adjusted once you launch, but build your launching pad well for a solid takeoff.
Another technology that supports partnership is a shared case management platform. A HIPAA-compliant tool like CharityTracker empowers partner agencies, organizations, and churches to share real-time information about neighbors you are serving together. You can set shared goals and follow the neighbor’s progress as you all work together toward their best life. Learn more at CharityTracker.com.
Plans Made, Engaged, Assessed, Adjusted Over Time
This is where you get into the details of the solution you are creating. These elements will include:
This can be an overwhelming venture! Take it one piece at a time. Go back to the 5 Ws and an H, asking questions such as:
If you are not a details person, who do you know that is? Are they on your team as staff or a volunteer? If you have the funding, consider contracting someone to walk you through the details. Don’t let this challenging stage cause you to quit or to choose lower quality. This is also another place to use AI as a tool to help you think through the details.
Once you launch, maintaining the ability to assess and adjust over time is critical to short-term and long-term success. Inflexibility can be debilitating. This goes back to the danger of standardization I discussed in Part 1 of this series.
At every stage and layer, continue conversations with available neighbors. Whether you're creating a solution for an individual, a family, or a larger community, keep connecting with them for their thoughts and insights. Not only will you be developing systems and processes for helping neighbors’ lives grow stronger, but you will be building trust and buy-in.
Stay in it, Keep Looking and Listening
I have had many conversations and served on councils and task forces about homelessness for almost four decades. I know a lot about the topic. But because of my conversation with my neighbor that day, and hearing her story, I now know of new problems to address and am thinking through the new conversations that need to take place to explore solutions.
Let’s be honest, this is work! Stay persistent, and don’t do it alone. Just remember, you can’t do it all, so don’t try. You may need to make some difficult choices to allow for focus and success. For instance, what might you need to stop that you have been doing for years so you can start new work you’ve determined is needed?
If you are alone in this work and, for some reason, can’t find anyone to join you, let me be a source of support. There is a library at this link that you can listen to or read. Allow this library of ideas, challenge, and encouragement to be a life stream for you. And don’t hesitate to reach out. My email is below.
You can do this!
Do you desire to strengthen your CharityTracker or OasisInsight network and achieve new levels of collaboration and impact? Reach out to Chuck today to schedule your conversation: chuck@simonsolutions.com.
Dr. Chuck Coward serves as Community Impact Strategist for Simon Solutions, Inc. Chuck has invested nearly forty years in fostering human and community development from a variety of places and roles, including as a pastor, non-profit Executive Director, Director of Development, businessman, consultant, university professor, The Struggle Coach, and the founder of Entrusted Foundation. He is passionate about helping people and communities grow stronger and healthier, and to live their best lives. Chuck is the proud husband of Anita, dad to four, and granddaddy to nine.
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