M-Force Ireland
M-force is a student club comprised of different student-consulting groups around social impact. One such project was with an Irish organization called iCare. Over Spring Break, 2018 a team of us students traveled to Ireland as part of consulting projects with iCare. They are engaged with our student consulting team to create an impact reporting framework that they can use to help communicate internally and externally the impact they are having.
As part of such, we have been moving through a series of work scoped out with the client. These included working on their mission statement, doing a stakeholder analysis, creating an impact map, identifying appropriate metrics, and developing a way to collect the data and report on those successes. For the stakeholder analysis, we considered it crucially important to actually interview the key stakeholders to better understand what changed for them as a result of the iCare MTR process, and how they might know it when they see the change. The information will inform the rest of the process and the final deliverable to iCare as the project progresses.
Over Spring Break, 2018 a team of us students traveled to Ireland to engage with those stakeholders. Visiting Ireland primarily for the purpose of engaging with stakeholders enriched the experience. Giving a reason to understand and engage with cultural, political, moral, economic and other such institutions of the country has helped to shape me personally and professionally.
By better understanding how each of these influence and are affected by one another, I can more fully shape solutions which are contextually appropriate. In the case of iCare’s impact report specifically, our team will be able to better measure and report on what of the many material impacts might be most appropriate and will resonate the most with the stakeholders.
Throughout my time so far here at MIIS, I have been developing a personal ethic or values around how “development” or interventions should be guided. This trip has reinforced my resolve to always make sure that your assumptions are verified through sufficient engagement with those impacted through the process. Focusing on key or the most impacted stakeholder is incredibly important, but also getting to know that motivations and potential impacts of those more peripheral stakeholders is likewise important.
“Jillian Flavin, Melody Jensen, Tyler Higginson stand outside AIB of Ireland after interviewing key stakeholders in the Mortgage-to-Rent scheme.”
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