Reenvisioning Elevate
When we started Elevate in 2016, we knew that, as evaluators, we had something to offer the Nashville community. We saw firsthand how hard nonprofits were working, and yet, how overwhelming data could be and hard it was to use it effectively. We recognized how hard funders were working to balance collecting information to learn while not overburdening their partners with reporting requirements . We saw the sector as a whole looking for ways to understand if it was moving the needle on major issues and how to communicate that impact to a broader audience.
We started talking around our kitchen tables about how we might be able to help. We talked and dreamed and planned and designed, and over the course of the next three years, we were able to grow this idea from a couple of small projects that we dedicated our nights and weekends to, to a thriving organization that allows us to do the work we love every day. Many of you supported us in those early days, either by talking to us about how we could help, giving us a chance to partner with you, or creating space for us to share our perspective and our vision about putting learning at the center of conversations about data and evaluation. To those of you who have supported us in these ways (and more!), we are deeply grateful.
Enter 2020. At last year’s planning retreat, we carefully chose a word that would guide this year’s work, and that word was...wait for it...stability. Hilarious, right? The thought was, we’ve had three years of rapid growth and expansion - we could use 2020 as a time to really double down on processes and infrastructure to ensure Elevate had a strong foundation to begin to grow and expand. But then 2020 happened. Like everyone else, we watched as our city was ripped apart by vicious tornadoes (including our new office space that we were SO proud of), we hunkered down in the early days of the pandemic, and we grappled with how we could deepen our commitment to supporting Black lives and communities.
Our team has been lucky enough (personally and organizationally) to maintain a sense of steadfastness through 2020, and while we were able to attend to some of the things we wanted to, we’ve had to embrace the ambiguity and uncertainty facing us and the rest of the world. True to our values, we’ve doubled down on reflection and learning to guide us through this uncertainty and help us really understand the value we bring to the community. Through these processes, we have been able to come to more clarity on who we are and what we think we bring to the table.
As we celebrate Elevate’s 4th birthday this October, we’re ready to share what we learned. We’ve captured our charge in our new vision statement:
We envision a world where communities have agency and capability to define and address problems in an equitable way.
This vision statement allows us to home in on what we care about; that is, building the capacity of communities (including neighborhoods, organizations, institutions, and systems) to learn from one another to solve our most pressing and daunting challenges. With this vision in mind, we have dug in and unpacked the values that guide our work. We have realized that the heart of our work is supporting learning in whatever way makes the most sense for each unique context, and that data and evaluation aren’t the only tools to get us there. As such, we have re-thought our services, building out areas where our strengths add value and being honest about areas where we aren’t the best fit. While we will always be evaluators at heart, we hope that this puts us in a better position to support the community in more expansive and adaptive ways. We’re leaning into our strengths as storytellers, systems change agents, and process experts in an effort to best support communities to create positive, equitable change.
The thing we’ve learned in 2020 is that stability may be elusive, but crisis accelerates change and clarifies problems. Maybe we weren’t able to create “stability” in the ways we envisioned, but through our commitment to learning, we’ve been able to reenvision who we are and what we have to offer.
This week, in an effort to communicate these changes in how we want to show up in the world, we’re rolling out a new look and a new website that we feel is a better reflection of who we are.
Explore our new home at consultelevate.com. We’d love to hear how this resonates with you, and how we can continue to learn and support you and the communities you serve. Drop us a message, an email, a DM, or set up a Zoom date with us. We are so grateful to be a part of this amazing community, and we look forward to continuing to learn with you.