Mapping Impact by Fellows
What does mobilization by GFA mean?
When a person is mobilized by GFA, they become a part of the intentional, strategic, and ongoing process by which they leverage their diverse skills, networks, and insights to access and deploy resources, as well as advocate for them. As such, they drive positive and lasting changes by expanding influence, fostering relationships, navigating complex dynamics, generating tangible outcomes, and promoting institutional transformations for sustainable impact in the public sector. It's about building relationships, understanding complex dynamics, and creating real, lasting impacts in the places you work and communities you serve.
Sophanite Gedion
Chief Programs Officer, Govern For America
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Why did GFA undertake a study of its mobilization?
Our why is always rooted in uplifting our community and their work! In the fall of 2022, GFA reached out to Spark Learning because we suspected our impact went beyond the Fellows participating in our program, their supervisors, and even their colleagues. We refined our approach to more accurately measure and celebrate our impact.
This was also important because GFA committed to mobilizing 1,000 proximate leaders in 10 states by 2025 in our Strategic Vision. We set this target because we knew our work was moving others to action in a way that had a lasting impact but we couldn’t tell that story yet because without a clear definition or measurement tool. Through this study, we clearly outlined the process of mobilization for public service employees make a meaningful and measurable impact in their communities, and we found a way to measure that impact.
The question of how we track and measure the spread of our impact is challenging, but it is mission-critical to our goals. The mobilization framework and tool generated from this study have real-world implications for the public sector.
What did the study reveal about GFA's impact?
We learned that GFA is mobilizing a lot more people than we thought! Working with Spark Learning, GFA learned that GFA’s 31 Fellows were, in fact, mobilizing 590 leaders! This meant that GFA had been significantly underestimating the impact of the individuals participating in our program.
How will the study be used to strengthen GFA's mission in the near future?
We’re piloting the tool developed through this study internally to measure our Fellows' impact more accurately. GFA will also use this report and tool to support governments in addressing their challenges with retention through building awareness of the impact on employees and the public .
Lastly, we’re working to share this report with other public service professionals in the field to show how much one person can actually change things in government. It will also help more people understand and adapt our approach to making an impact to increase their own.
If your organization is ready to partner with us, then contact me at sophanite@govforamerica.org to collaborate!