A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 4.0

THE COMMITMENTS THESE TWO ORGANIZATIONS HAVE MADE in the direction o' becoming hope machines, among other things: Where did they come from? What are their origins?

Their own descriptions of "the business they're in and why" should be a good source for answers. Getting a grip on their missions, values, and visions, in other words, should help.

It’d be nice if those things were easy to find online and in familiar (to me) formats. Since they're not, however, I've had to do my archeological best to excavate, label, and piece things together myself. This is what I've come up with so far.

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Mission: The fundamental purpose of an organization and what it provides to its beneficiaries. 

Luckily for us, mission statements from both organizations are posted on their respective sites:

Red Treehouse was created "to provide a welcoming and vibrant online community for families and professionals to explore resources to help (promote the well-being of) children and young adults, prenatal through age 25."

Boy, am I puzzled. I've been assuming that the group's offerings are intended, ultimately, to benefit “children with chronic illnesses and /or disabilities.” The mission doesn't make that distinction; it seems to be inclusive of all 0-25 year-olds. If that's the case, how much does the promise of FINDING HOPE (as a result of one's association with Red Treehouse) really mean, potentially, to the majority of that population?

United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) and its nearly 100 affiliates "have a mission to advance the independence, productivity and full citizenship of people with a spectrum of disabilities by providing services and support to more than 176,000 children and adults every day—one person at a time, one family at a time." 

The HOPE that quality of life for children with CP might be dramatically improved was the driving force behind the crusade to create UCP in 1949.

Values: Ideally, an organization's values prescribe its attitude, behavior, and character. 

Whole Foods says its core values "are the soul of our company.” What values are at the core of Red Treehouse and UCP? What internal compasses guide the two?

Although there's no official statement of values on either web site, I think one can discern what matters most to each...by snooping around. Which I did. What struck me was how remarkably similar their core values seem to be -- so similar, in fact, that I’m comfortable positing that Red Treehouse and UCP mutually value:

• a sense of urgency: Strive to make things better for kids today.  
• the belief that all things are possible: Challenges, be they physical or mental, are meant to be overcome.  
• the power of information: It's a matter of getting the right information to the right people at the right time.
• networks of Internet-connected people: Build the platform and a smart network will grow.

Vision: The mid- to long-term goals of an organization; an expression of how it wants to be perceived by the world. 

I find it fitting that both organizations are on the paths they're on now largely because eight (8) years ago the people behind them saw a need for change. Sweeping change. Sometime in 2004:

UCP kicked off "a far-reaching dialogue about the ways in which people with disabilities could become fully integrated in society and live life without limits." 

A small group of people affiliated with Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) "convened a meeting with community leaders from hospitals, universities and social service organizations in Greater Cleveland." (RMHC and Ohio Family and Children First combined efforts in 2011 to form Red Treehouse.)

Conferences and visioning sessions involving large numbers of participants ensued. They asked essentially the same questions: What's not right? What would a better future look like for kids with disabilities? What needs to change?

In both cases, takeaways from their heavy-duty "visioning" were then funneled into (1.) strategy reformulations, which lead, in turn, to things like the new web sites and other digital deliverables that I'll start dissecting in the next post, and (2.) the big-picture, high-level goals of each organization.

Most larger organizations use formal vision statements to communicate their big-picture, high-level goals. A classic example? JFK's [to] “land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth before the end of the decade.” (his administration's vision for the US space program) That statement contains three (3) key components: a stretch goal, a definition of the entity's niche, and a time horizon.  

I'm sure Red Treehouse and UCP have vision statements. But I can't find anything as comprehensive as I'd like on either site. About the best I can do is report on the ways in which they do or don't address these components (of a "model" statement):

Niches: Both organizations do an outstanding job of spelling out what their niches are. I guess I shouldn't be surprised: they seem to parallel one another to a T. Each aspires to be a broad, strong educational and support resource that provides hope for – in the case of Red Treehouse, Ohio families with kids with chronic illnesses or disabilities (regardless of diagnosis); in the case of UCP, people the world over "with a spectrum of disabilities” (cerebral palsy, but also: Down Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder, physical disabilities and traumatic brain injury)

Stretch goals: Stretch goals set the pace, establish a sense of urgency, and challenge an organization's stakeholders. Apart from references to numbers of people who use or receive support from their various services, I've yet to come across any indication of what stretch goals may be in place. No measures of success. No references to "units of hope" or (more broadly and realistically) to any sort of customer satisfaction target... 


Time horizons: When will the organizations' various programs, projects, initiatives, etc. bear fruit? The only time references anywhere are in the vague "find hope for today and to look forward to tomorrow with greater confidence, support and expectation" [ Red Treehouse ] and "We strive to build a better world for tomorrow, today." [ UCP ]

Organizational vision statements are frequently incomplete, i.e., not expressed in the well-rounded form of JFK's. The problem with that is it makes them not very conducive to being carried out, i.e., executed.

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SO, WE'VE BROUGHT TO LIGHT SOME OF THE BIG IDEAS upon which these two organizations are founded. Next, we're going to fast forward a bit -- zooming past the strategic analysis, development, and planning that have flowed o'er the years from their visioning -- to the products of all that, the actual offerings of the organizations: the goods, services, etc. that people like us on the receiving end get to see.

A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 3.1

Why all the attention paid in the previous post to the use of the word “hope?”

Language counts. 

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Dear Red Treehouse and UCP:

Somewhere Wendell Berry wrote that abstract, ‘objective,’ impersonal, dispassionate language...cannot replace, and it cannot become, the language of familiarity, reverence, and affection by which things of value ultimately are protected.
 

It’s a big job you two have taken on, and the language you use lets us know what you make of its attendant challenges and opportunities. It reveals how passionate you are. (or aren't)  Words don't tell the whole story, of course, but they “clue us in” as to whether or not we should invest: our monies, our participation, our emotions…

Hope may be the most emotionally charged word on your respective sites. Before we get ours up, we want to have some idea of how committed you are to stewarding it. Are you up to the task?

We sincerely hope so.  

A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 3.0

How are Red Treehouse and UCP letting the rest of the world know they’re in the hope business? 

Note: My focus going forward will be on the digitally-mediated (i.e., electronic) communications and information flows of both organizations. That pretty much covers everything Red Treehouse does, and but a portion of what UCP does.

Red Treehouse: 

There she is on the homepage -- in the tagline at the top: Discover Answers. Make Connections. Find Hope. -- and again in the "Welcome to Red Treehouse" text block: Hope for today and confidence as you look forward to tomorrow. As far as I can tell, those are the only places where hope is explicitly mentioned on the whole site.

Couple of observations:

• Hope is linked to other things like answers, information, and empowerment in both instances. The implication?  Where there's hope...answers, information, and empowerment are on the trail leading up to it. 

• The verbiage is spare, to say the least. There ain’t a lot of emotion imparted. 

To the second point, the floweriest expression I've been able to find of how hopeful the organization itself feels lies in a news piece (ostensibly a press release) about going live with the Web site in greater Cleveland. Red Treehouse is described therein as “a place to explore, discover and see beyond immediate surroundings. It is a place where people come to find new possibilities, where people gather to help children and young adults meet needs, to overcome challenges and develop to their fullest potential.” 

UCP: 

Believable hope is listed at www.ucp.org as one of six (6) building blocks to have come out of the visioning sessions that were tied (from '04-'07) to the organization’s “Life Without Limits” initiative.* 

Videos from said sessions were to have been posted online, but, as far as I can tell, have not been. That's unfortunate -- I believe -- for a couple o' reasons: (1) I bet the conversations about hope were inspiring at the time and could continue to inspire; (2) Those same conversations would no doubt reveal how and why the adjective "believable" was tacked on.

My best guess (re: "believable") is that the participants concluded that hope has to be realistic, i.e., that people have to have good reasons to feel hopeful. Makes sense. However, what's "good reason" to one may not be to another. For some, reasons have to be scientifically supported or logically proven to be considered good; for others, God's word is more than good reason enough. Which of these did they have in mind? Red Treehouse doesn't make the same distinction. How come?

Continuing on...

Like Red Treehouse, UCP uses the word “hope” infrequently on its site. Unlike Red Treehouse, however, UCP writes hope (albeit indirectly) into and onto all of its digital deliverables. That UCP is committed to ensuring a "Life Without Limits" is everywhere you click. 

Putting out there the possibility that my child could live a life without limits plants seeds of great hope in me. I’m sure it does the same in other parents, as well.


*Last year, Life Without Limits (LWL) was apparently reconstructed. I haven't been able to find details. I only assume believable hope is still a key element.

A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 2.0

Because hope is such a slippery concept, I’m gonna try my darnedest to keep this dictionary.com definition front ‘n’ center:

the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best

Maybe down the road it’ll be instructive to “pick hope apart”, measure it, compare it with other concepts, etc. But – note to self – I don’t want to get sidetracked...

Any more than I already have. 

Hunh?

Already I’m having second thoughts. I said in the Intro that, in addition to having received valuable information from my friends in Denver, I found hope. That’s true, but I left out something important. 

Receiving and reading their report was also like magic.   

What’s more, I think it was intentional (the magic) on their part. Deliberate. Sneakily engineered into the product. While searching online, in fact, I came across this definition they’ve used over the years: "Magic is emergent, an awareness arising from a fusing through present action of curiosity, intensity, sensitivity, integrity, wonder."

Should UCP and /or Red Treehouse aspire to deliver magic? Magic and hope seem to have important things in common. Is magic a higher good? A different one? 

Note to self: Relegate these to the back burner. For now.

A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 1.0

“Lance Armstrong cheated.”

“Lance Armstrong‘s a terrific athlete. Y’ know, he swam competitively as a kid…”

“Lance Armstrong is a hope machine.”

Of the opinions I’ve heard voiced since Lance Armstrong was banned by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the last one sticks out. A hope machine. For having survived cancer. For his seven Tour wins in a row. For the LIVESTRONG Foundation: a top-ten funder of cancer research worldwide and source of inspiration and empowerment to many.

What, if anything else, has ever called to my mind the words “hope” and “machine” together? Is there a Lance Armstrong equivalent in the cerebral palsy (CP) world? 

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When I met Leif Smith and Pat Wagner, they were operating what they called “a general store for explorers” in Denver and making a rather unusual offering. I don’t remember how the value proposition was worded, but their service worked as follows. For a small investment – a little bit o’ dough and an earnest effort on my part to put into words what I most wanted to explore (my “passion”) – they would provide me with custom-tailored information: names and descriptions of people from around the world who could help me progress, i.e., forge ahead. 

In machine-like fashion, they used my query, my quest, as raw material / input...added value to it...and generated a report /output.

The report I received from them in return was impressive. As much as I valued the content, though, I valued learning that there were other people out there with similar interests even more. It "proved" to me ( the evidence was right there in writing ) that you don’t have to stay stuck. There’s no such thing as a dead end. You don't have to give up.

Hope.

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You may have guessed that that hope machine predated the Internet. Both parties to the transaction used typewriters and twenty cent stamps; the whole process took a couple of weeks.

Nowadays…

What with today’s digital infrastructure, you can pretty much do everything we did then in a matter of seconds. You can search for and find hope online – by going, for example, to www.livestrong.org.

Or to www.redtreehouse.org. 
Or to www.ucp.org.  

The second and third have been on my radar of late because of my interest in knowledge flows in the CP world, and, because of some specific initiatives they’ve independently launched.

The organization behind www.ucp.org I’ve known about for some time: United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) and its nearly 100 affiliates have "a mission to advance the independence, productivity and full citizenship of people with a spectrum of disabilities by providing services and support to more than 176,000 children and adults every day—one person at a time, one family at a time.”

As for www.redtreehouse.org, I only recently stumbled on it. Red Treehouse was born of a partnership between Ohio Family and Children First (OFCF) and the Ronald McDonald House® of Cleveland, Inc. (RMH). It was formed for the benefit of kids with chronic illnesses and disabilities to provide an online place for families and professionals to DISCOVER ANSWERS. MAKE CONNECTIONS. FIND HOPE.

Although they have different ways of saying it, these organizations have taken it upon themselves to become significant sources of inspiration and empowerment. They're hope-machines-in-the-making. I’m very interested in what they're striving to do. Especially as it relates to their efforts to harness the power of the Net to those ends.

That's what I hope to explore via a series of posts. I have some ideas about the analyzing lenses I'd like to look through. I don't, on the other hand, have many ideas about where things may lead. 

I only hope -- myself -- to be helpful along the way, 'cause I'm supportive of both organizations.