How to challenge the world of impact measurement

[Music]

the first woman with her own character

in the fifa 20

str sports street legends team and

i don’t know do you know how many people

play this game fifa

it’s crazy it’s over 10 million people

all over the world it’s one of the most

popular games out there

i didn’t know that i don’t even have a

playstation

and i definitely never expected

this to happen so let’s talk about

expectations

wait um you probably expect me to do a

football trick

right because you know i don’t want to

disappoint you so okay let’s just get it

over with

let’s meet those expectations and

done growing up

as a girl society expected me

to do girl things and that’s definitely

not

playing football i was ridiculed for

playing football

people were trying to figure out if i

was a boy or a girl

and that had a huge impact on my

self-image

expectations can be destructive and

definitive because if i don’t live up to

their expectations of me they write me

off

but it also works the other way around

because

if you don’t live up to my expectations

i’m not very open to connect with you i

think we all know

how this works like i said

expectations can be destructive and

definitive

and to me it felt like a bar was set for

i either accepted it or i don’t

but what happens if you change the bar

and what happens if you answer

expectations

by creating new ones

that’s what happened and that’s what i

discovered

and that’s also the foundation of my

organization

favela street i

expected to play football for the rest

of my life

but that all changed after just one

tackle

my career ended at least that’s what i

thought

because i knew how i could use football

to connect with people and i knew how i

could use that magic

to connect with people who otherwise are

disconnected

from society and this is the foundation

on which the programs of

feather streets are built the young

participants

are often written off by society

no proper education no opportunities to

excel and so on

and we help them reconnect with

themselves and society

and through the process that we take

them on

they detach themselves from the negative

expectations that society projects on

them

they discover that they can be somebody

and it all starts with play

getting to know each other and playing

football together

and learning how to be a team and after

we establish

this safe environment where the

participants feel

comfortable we focus on create they

learn how to organize football

activities in their

in their communities and we talk goals

and dreams

and they create their story through

storytelling and last but not least

we celebrate and we connect because it’s

important to share

and celebrate your successes and

especially for these young people

and we connect them to people and

organizations to

build their network and to create a

sustainable connection

and this whole approach is based on the

belief

that one individual can impact an entire

community

these young people can turn expectations

around

and it works like a ripple effect so i

said

one individual can impact an entire

community

we have many individuals in our program

so let me tell you

about stephanie stephanie from curacao

before i met her i already heard people

talking about her

from the outside she was seen as

dangerous and

negative and when i met her she told me

that from the inside she wasn’t happy

she said that she was too lazy and that

she was lacking discipline

and she joined our program without very

many expectations of herself

and through the program she learned more

about herself in a different way

she learned about her value as a team

player

she learned about what she really wanted

to achieve in life

and she learned how to go beyond her

expectations and the expectations that

were set for her

her set of expectations shifted

and by shifting those expectations

her behavior changed and

by that she was empowered and it gave

her the freedom

to create new expectations for herself

and for others for the people around her

because at first

people didn’t want to talk to her they’d

rather avoid her

but now now she’s a sports teacher at a

school

and that was one of her dreams and the

funny thing is that the teachers at that

school come to her to ask her for advice

and to help them

with the children who don’t want to

listen to them because the children do

listen to

stephanie we all know

a stephanie we think we know someone

and we don’t we judge people without

even knowing them

but look what happens if you have the

courage to go beyond your expectations

stephanie is one success story but we

have many

and there are similar programs like

favela street

because it works and it’s so rewarding

to see

individuals thrive and affect their

community

in a positive way and as an ngo

in order to survive i’m subjected to

impact measurements

and this is not something we only see in

the ngo world

this is something that people from the

corporate world education

anywhere can recognize

it’s all about numbers and statistics

and upscaling is the magic word which is

understandable because you want to

increase your impact

and that made me think do i have to

shorten the time of my program so i can

do more programs

do i need more participants so i can

reach more people

but that just didn’t seem right to me

because it takes time

to make a real connection with people

and it takes time to create a cultural

shift

and it definitely takes time to change

expectations

so why not measure

the real change that people make why not

measure the personal growth of the

participant of the people

and the effect of that growth on the

people around them

can we shift the bar within impact

measurement

from a quantitative approach with focus

on scale and numbers

to a more qualitative approach with

focus on measuring

the sustainable change and that’s what

we’ve done

together with researcher laura juncker

specialized in self-regulation and

sports psychology

we created an innovative impact

measurement tool and this tool

measures the personal growth of our

participants

and the effect of that growth on the

people around them

the so-called ripple effect and at the

same time this tool provides our

participants

insights into their process of growth

they can see and feel that they’re

making steps forward

it’s designed to increase the motivation

and self-image of the participant

this should be new criteria with an

impact measurement

this should be the new bar if you’d ask

it could influence governing bodies

policies and so on

and you know the funny thing is that i

just said like

one individual one individual can impact

an entire community

then i think one ngo can impact and

change the world

and i’m now representing an innovative

way of

thinking within this world of impact

measurement

never expected that to happen and

answering expectations by creating new

ones

it isn’t easy you want to know what’s

easy to me

football but yeah you already knew that

and you already expected that for me

challenging expectations it’s a

difficult process

and i’m still learning and i still catch

myself sometimes having expectations

about others about myself

limiting myself it isn’t easy yet

it takes practice just like football

give yourself the time and space to

practice

and to always expect the unexpected