This is a part of the User-Driven Programming Series.
Organizations are often stuck in short-term thinking, rushing to put out every fire as it appears, instead of using strategy. Everything, including user-driven programming, should have a strategy and a vision. It can be easy to just say, “we make programs” instead of asking ourselves, why?
What is the why?
The purpose of user-driven programming, for all of us, is to engage our leaders, members, congregants, or constituents. As a result, we need to go deeper and ask yourselves, why are we going through this effort? By answering this question, we can better develop strong systems, meaningful approaches in engaging our people, and create a long term strategy around it.
If your “why” is to create an engaged community, then your programs will need to reflect that core value.
Long-term thinking.
Nothing happens overnight, good work takes time to grow and succeed. As a result, having a long-term view will be essential. Strong, healthy user-driven systems will take time to get off the ground, change culture, and invite people to participate. If you are only focusing on what is in front of you, you will not be able to reach your bigger goals.
What are your benchmarks? How will you know if you succeeded?
Once you have a sense of what your “why” is and have a long term view, it will be key to pin down how you will know that you’re on the right track. It can be rooted in how many programs, though I’d recommend against that. Quantity is important but not if it is pushing you in the wrong direction. You might want to measure how many leaders you have, how easy is it to participate if you’re new, or how many audiences you’re reaching are all possible benchmarks for you to consider.
For Derekh, Congregation Beth Shalom’s programming department, I had the goal of having a program every day, with the idea that we’d be offering a strong variety of programs. In March 2020, we had 34 programs scheduled over the course of the month, less than three years after we launched the department. Even now, during the pandemic, Winter 2020, we still have three to five weekly programs on top of monthly, one-off, and semi-regular programs.
While this isn’t “success” on its own, these are benchmarks to see if we’re on the right track.
Have a question on how to implement this? Want me to help you set it up? I’m available for consulting and I’d be happy to work something out for you and/or your organization! Reach out!