The Special Sauce of Social Impact
When I walked into an info session for a Ballard Center Social Innovation Case Competition, I had only planned on enjoying a free J Dawg- replete with banana peppers and drizzled with its iconic special sauce - then trekking back to the library to finish my homework. However, as I loitered long enough to not look too much the hot dog opportunist, I got hooked by an opportunity to become involved in an international development project right here on BYU campus.
A refugee social integration program called Singa was rapidly scaling and looking for ways to maintain a global identity while ensuring local autonomy. Partnering with the Ballard Center, Singa hoped to hear some fresh and innovative ideas from BYU students to address these growing pains. Undeterred by our lack of experience and fueled by a desire to alleviate some part of the refugee crisis, some new friends and I formed a team to participate in the case competition.
Over the next three weeks, my team tested how late one can stay in the basement of the Kennedy Center without getting kicked out. Although I was no stranger to burning the midnight oil, these late nights were not driven by any academic goal, but from a drive to both grasp the mission of this commendable institution and also address its shortcomings. This undertaking required a major shift in my brainstorming and thought process. Sometimes my team thought we had a good grasp on a concept, such as Singa’s emphasis on not treating refugees as victims; however, we realized that one of our ideas actually worked against that core principle. So we adjusted and moved on. This willingness to entirely scrap something and start anew led us to a better understanding of the social movement that Singa aspired to be and propelled us to place as semifinalists.
Participating in this program provided my first real-world experience with a charitable effort that was grappling with real problems. Prior to this, I had bought into the idea that any well intentioned effort to help the world - whether digging wells or giving away free shoes - should simply be praised and not critically analyzed. However, this first experience with the Ballard Center taught me to look for and embrace an organization’s challenges, with full faith that humility and innovative ideas can enable these good intentions to yield good outcomes. My grades may have suffered that month, but my passion for improving social impact grew from a spark to a blaze.
Looking forward to a career as a foreign service officer for the State Department, I see myself applying the skills I gained from this case competition. Improving diplomatic relations between countries requires a willingness and ability to evaluate the efficacy of pre-existing programs, from cultural exchanges to development aid packages. During my State Department internship last semester, I participated in a panel to fund public diplomacy projects and witnessed the group struggle to find a way to evaluate each proposal beyond its altruistic intentions. In my future work in groups such as that one, I will apply the principles of social impact evaluation that I learned from the Ballard Center in order to bring a fresh perspective and to foster innovative ideas.
So what are the ingredients in this “special sauce” of social impact? The ability to criticize the product of ours and others’ good intentions. The willingness to explore seemingly crazy ideas. The perseverance to work and rework and validate our ideas. And a few teaspoons of midnight oil. Because we all need to figure out how to do good. Better.