Projects
Research program
Define leadership, measure resilience.
We invite academic and professional scholars to work with us to understand social resilience, effective grassroots crisis response, and what it takes to help it happen.
Research to improve social resilience
To guide our work, we are looking for answers to questions such as:
What inspires people to rise up and succeed in a crisis?
What individual and situational factors inspire a bystander to take action in a crisis? What skills and mindsets lead to successful collective action and improvised leadership?
What learning methods can prepare people for grassroots crisis response?
What educational techniques promote and reinforce the skills and mindsets of collective action and improvised leadership? What techniques yield effective behaviors years later in a time of uncertainty and stress?
What support do those who take action need?
What common challenges do grassroots crisis response efforts face? What are the most effective ways of overcoming them? How can coaching and support services help grassroots responders to improvise and adapt in their unique situations?
How do we measure outcomes?
How do we measure behavioral change, long-term impact, and complex social interactions? What methods will give us reliable actionable answers in the chaotic and emotionally difficult environments of crisis?
Research projects
Project
Research Roundtables
Understanding crisis, collective action, and improvised leadership draws on many scientific fields. We are leading a series of roundtable discussions that bring together diverse groups of researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas and share insights.
LEARN MORE about Roundtables →
Project (completed)
COVID-19 leaders study
When COVID-19 became a pandemic, we immediately knew that grassroots efforts would emerge all over. We interviewed leaders and experts in the thick of it to uncover what emerging spontaneous leaders need to succeed, and how we can support them.
LEARN MORE →
Project (on hold)
Hurricane Harvey study
A few days after Hurricane Harvey first struck Texas, we learned of this exceptional case of improvised crisis leadership. Within weeks, we were doing ethnographic interviews in Rockport TX to learn what happened, and why people did what they did.
LEARN MORE →
From our blog
Three CZU Fire Survivors Tell Their Stories
On the third day of Thanks and Giving, we give to you … three stories from people who had to flee their homes because of wildfire.
7 Tips visual challenge results!
We recently presented the amazingly creative Verbal to Visual community — led by the inspired and inspiring Doug Neill — with a challenge: …
Learning from COVID-19 grassroots leaders: 7 Tips to be Effective in a Crisis (part 3 of 2)
Here are the 7 behaviors Spontaneous Leaders in COVID-19 told us were critical to their success.
From our blog
Three CZU Fire Survivors Tell Their Stories
On the third day of Thanks and Giving, we give to you … three stories from people who had to flee their homes because of wildfire.
7 Tips visual challenge results!
We recently presented the amazingly creative Verbal to Visual community — led by the inspired and inspiring Doug Neill — with a challenge: …
Learning from COVID-19 grassroots leaders: 7 Tips to be Effective in a Crisis (part 3 of 2)
Here are the 7 behaviors Spontaneous Leaders in COVID-19 told us were critical to their success.
Get involved
Partner
Research Collaborators
Work with us to study the many research questions that surround grassroots crisis response. We have the questions, we have the field opportunities. We need research collaborations to get the answers.
Volunteer
Evaluation Designer
Work with us to develop ways of measuring progress and impact, and collect and understand the data.
Details
START
ASAP
DURATION
3-6 months
DESCRIPTION
We want to change behavior, so we need to know what effects we are having. We need a creative, and rigorous, thinker to help us define outcome metrics and measures, and develop data collection methods for evaluating what people learn from our events as well as the success of our programs.
Volunteer
Case Study Writer
Bring amazing stories of grassroots response efforts to life so others can learn from them.
Details
START
When available
DURATION
Occasional or ongoing
DESCRIPTION
Help us write case studies from amazing stories of people stepping up to help their communities cope in crisis. We need writer-analysts to dig deep into interview data, and come up with compelling fact-based narratives.
“‘Google’ is not a synonym for ‘research’.”
— Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol