Mapping Explicit Impacts During Times of Uncertainty: Creating sustainable HAI programs.

Many times HAI programs are initially sponsored by passionate donors or by staff personnel who champion the original implementation of the program. However, early supporters may not plan on long-term support or when staff champions move on HAI programs may be seen as effective but not necessarily essential to the organization. Today, many programs and organizations are facing highly uncertain near-term futures and an even more opaque mid- and long-term horizon. While practitioners cannot predict what will happen, they can increase readiness so that they take action in advance.

This session, first, assists practitioners in using basic foresight techniques to visualize intersecting, complex futures and systematically identify threats, opportunities, and critical insights. The session will provide tools and techniques to turn strategic foresight into the critical new insights that ultimately lead to action. Second, through interactive exercises, the session will explore methods that align HAI programs with organizational goals and objectives enabling practitioners to see beyond current constraints to identify new possibilities. Through exploration of participants’ current challenges, the session will demonstrate how to leverage hindsight, and identify champions to plan for sustainability with novel/innovative HAI programs. Third, the session will provide practical and pragmatic approaches to program evaluation planning and fiscal accountability. This is particularly important when designing/implementing/sustaining programs aimed at supporting at-risk or impoverished communities, which are historically difficult to fund. Program design and outcome data created by these practices provides credible evidence for allocation of appropriate resources to support sustainable programs.

Learning Objectives: 1. Explain the concept of signals of change 2. Explain how logic models are used for planning and evaluation. 3. Explain how evidence-based program planning influences revenue streams.

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