This interview features Camila, Director of Impact and Mission at Havenly, a social enterprise and coffee shop in New Haven. The discussion centers on Havenly's unique approach to outcome measurement, which extends beyond traditional job placement metrics to focus on building "community power" among immigrant and refugee women. Camila explains that success is defined by fostering strong interpersonal ties and mutual support among diverse participants, ensuring sustained engagement of alums in the organization's activities and governance, and empowering participants to advocate for systemic change by understanding their inherent rights. The conversation highlights both quantitative (e.g., employment rates, businesses started, board representation) and qualitative (e.g., conversational evaluations, observing shifts in mindset and discourse, storytelling) methods used to measure these multi-dimensional outcomes, emphasizing the transformation of intangible feelings of agency and rights into measurable indicators of societal impact.
Building Community Power: Havenly's Holistic Approach to Measuring Impact
0:00 Havenly's Social Enterprise Model: The interview takes place at Havenly, a social enterprise coffee shop in New Haven, known for training refugee and migrant women for jobs in the food industry.
0:40 Broader Mission Beyond Job Training: Camila, Director of Impact and Mission, explains that Havenly's core mission is to build the "community power" of immigrant and refugee women, going beyond mere job placement to foster economic security, freedom, and overall well-being.
1:54 Defining "Community Power": Success means facilitating the community's ability to affect change in their local area (New Haven, West Haven, Greater New Haven), through organization, strong interpersonal ties, self-confidence, and agency to address material injustices.
3:16 Fostering Connections Among Diverse Cohorts: A key component of success is building relationships among women from varied backgrounds (speaking Farsy, Pashto, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese) who share similar experiences as immigrants and refugees.
4:30 Sustained Alum Engagement: Havenly aims for 100% of its program alums to remain engaged, attending social events (like dance parties) and political organizing meetings (e.g., "Sisters in Diaspora") to continue building friendships and support networks.
5:06 Alum-Led Governance: A significant measure of success is having over half of Havenly's board positions occupied by program alums, ensuring that the organization's direction and strategy are guided by the women it serves.
5:53 Empowering Agency and Rights: A crucial outcome is for women to feel empowered to push for change and understand that their struggles (e.g., housing affordability) are due to systemic failings, not personal fault, promoting a shift in discourse from "earning a right to exist" to "deserving better."
8:26 Measuring Intangibles - Conversational Evaluations: Havenly uses open-ended, conversational pre- and post-evaluations (and a six-month follow-up) to gauge participants' sense of agency, ability to collaborate, and confidence in achieving personal goals.
9:52 Relational Observation for Impact: The organization's strong relational approach allows staff to observe changes in women's lives over time, including their speech, excitement, and actions (e.g., starting businesses after overcoming fear, becoming involved in political organizing).
11:41 Multi-Dimensional Metrics: Havenly uses a combination of tangible metrics (e.g., long-term employment rates, number of businesses started, alum representation on the board) and qualitative storytelling to demonstrate the impact of their work.
12:46 Communicating to Traditional Stakeholders: When engaging with more traditional funders, Havenly highlights concrete statistics like long-term employment rates and new businesses started, framing the latter as both economic success and empowerment for women to pursue their dreams.