Through the course of our investing, Chicago Beyond has become acutely aware of the power dynamics between community organizations, researchers, and funders that can block information and hinder better decision making and investment. Why Am I Always Being Researched? is a guidebook to shift the way community organizations, researchers, and funders uncover knowledge together. It is an equity-based approach to research that offers a path to restoring communities as authors and owners. It is based on the steps and missteps of Chicago Beyond’s own experience and the courageous and patient efforts of our partners, the communities they serve, and others with whom we have learned.
Our guidebook invites community organizations, researchers, funders, and all social sector leaders on a path toward more authentic truth. We invite you to download the publication and engage in identifying and reimagining power dynamics, and to even the playing field to do the most good.
Power dynamics create an uneven field on which research is designed and allows unintended bias to seep into how knowledge is generated. If left unaddressed, at best, we are driving decision-making from partial truths, and at worst, we are generating inaccurate information that does more harm than good.
Why Am I Always Being Researched? envisions a more equitable world by embracing voices furthest from institutional power as intrinsically valuable. This is not about embracing community voice when it is a means to an end, and being unwilling to listen when voices are not saying what we wish to hear.
This is a journey towards more authentic truth for all of us. Let us encourage one another and look for the joy in this journey. There is a lot of it.
Power dynamics create an uneven field on which research is designed and allows unintended bias to seep into how knowledge is generated. If left unaddressed, at best, we are driving decision-making from partial truths, and at worst, we are generating inaccurate information that does more harm than good.
Why Am I Always Being Researched? envisions a more equitable world by embracing voices furthest from institutional power as intrinsically valuable. This is not about embracing community voice when it is a means to an end, and being unwilling to listen when voices are not saying what we wish to hear.
This is a journey towards more authentic truth for all of us. Let us encourage one another and look for the joy in this journey. There is a lot of it.
“As a foundation that sits at the intersection of civic engagement and philanthropy, the Chicago Community Trust has set out to put equity at the forefront of our work. This type of transformation takes time, collaboration, understanding, and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable in our truth. Chicago Beyond’s guidebook is a resource that can walk alongside organizations like ours, and others, who are determined to give power and voice back to community and create a more equitable landscape for all.”
Helene Gayle, Former President of Spelman College and Former CEO of The Chicago Community Trust
“When Dr. King was assassinated, in the 60s, we were doing studies in North Lawndale and Garfield, and here it is almost sixty years later. We have been studied for years and years and years—what is the positive outcome we are going to see for these studies we are always doing? Will it be in these young men’s lifetimes? While they are still in their twenties?”
Karen Jackson, Director of Workforce Development, Lawndale Christian Legal Center
“Chicago Beyond has just handed us an incredible tool for funders, researchers, and organization leaders. This pushes the reset button and allows us to rethink evaluation. And let’s face it, the problems we aim to alleviate are too complicated for us to approach solutions without examining how we are entering the work. This tool gives us questions to use in our everyday work. Questions like: What if building trust is the variant that indelibly strengthens our outcomes? How can funders come to the table recognizing our own power to influence, shape, and therefore limit the results? And what if funders had to use the same evaluation approaches and metrics on ourselves that we force others to submit to? So, let’s rethink. Let’s come to the table recognizing the power source is the ORGANIZATION. They aren’t the subject, they are the research designer.”
Angelique Power, President & CEO of the Skillman Foundation
“We are not asking the right questions. To reverse the cycle of oppression, we must understand the intersectional complexity of personal responsibility, programmatic acts of charity, and the interplay of systems and policies that are designed to deny opportunity. To evaluate an afterschool program absent of intersectional context is misleading and provides answers that are insufficient, and often useless to transforming the lives of people living in the community. This guide pushes the conversation, which is exactly what the field needs.”
Dr. Michael McAfee, President and CEO of PolicyLink
“As board members or decision-makers at the table, we ask for ‘hard evidence’ and ‘gold-standard methods’ thinking we are stewarding resources well, but if we don’t take a hard look at the inequities built into how evidence is getting made, we could be doing the opposite. I appreciate the thoughtfulness behind Why Am I Always Being Researched? and its push for us all to do better when it comes to equity and access.”
Arne Duncan, Managing Partner, Emerson Collective
Making catalytic investments to increase the impact of solutions led by those closest to the issues
Leading national initiatives in partnership with diverse changemakers to challenge and reshape the status quo
Providing insights to disrupt and reimagine “systems as usual,” and drive equitable funding, practices, and policies