My Brother's Keeper Alliance

MBK Framework - Data Driven Decisions: What Gets Measured Gets Managed

MBK Communities share and use data for decision-making, improving practices, accelerating outcomes and tracking progress for long-term sustainability. Gathering and sharing information is an accountability measure – what works, what doesn’t and uncovering gaps is essential in providing quality services to boys and young men of color and modifying those strategies when necessary.

Comprehensive Data Management

Partners collect and report data on boys and young men of color outcomes. Partners share data regularly in a comprehensive collaborative system. Data is openly published by the local government and available to the public in a central and online location.

Culture of Continuing Improvement and Data-Driven Decision-Making

Partners have actively collaborated and established data indicators and benchmarks of success for all partners and regularly share data and decisions. Government and partners have a track record of making data-informed decisions and alignment on indicators to track the progress of boys and young men of color and make information publicly available.

Continuous Evaluations of Programs and Outcomes

Conduct an evaluation and analyze results to inform decisions.

Continuous Community Communication and Feedback

Community members are mobilized to provide input and feedback on outcomes and progress. Community members jointly develop solutions for boys and young men of color based on established feedback loops and data.

Denver was one of the first cities to accept President Obama’s MBK Community Challenge and has been a shining example of leadership and commitment.

The Office of Children’s Affairs works with youth, community members, businesses, nonprofits, educational institutions and other government agencies to identify the issues that most often keep boys and young men of color from achieving success. With their partners, they created the My Brother’s Keeper Index, a statistical aggregation of 12 social indicators by neighborhoods in Denver. The accompanying map illustrates the areas in Denver where My Brother’s Keeper initiative programs, services, and interventions would be most applicable.

Steps to Improvement

Conduct an initial assessment of data collection to determine that data is or can be disaggregated by race and ethnicity.
Develop a plan for collecting and disaggregating data by race and ethnicity where it may be missing.
Analyze data for patterns of disparities for boys and young men of color.
Select and use data platform to analyze and publish disaggregated data.
Arrive at shared understanding across sectors of key indicators revealed by data.
Define and establish benchmarks of success for boys and young men of color improvements.
Based on benchmarks, decide by formal agreement with partners where to dedicate time and resources to achieve established boys and young men of color benchmarks.
Decide on an evaluation process with partners; define the goal of what should be evaluated and the type of evaluation
Conduct a program evaluation.
Analyze and share evaluation results.
Hold at least one event with partners to collect community input.
Hold quarterly events with partners to collect community input.
Hold monthly (or more) events with partners to collect community input.
Make the results of the boys and young men of color assessments publicly available.
Implement community feedback mechanisms – provide opportunities for ALL community members to provide inputs and name qualitative measures of success.
Develop a community advisory board with representatives who speak out and engage with partner meetings and hold the chapter accountable, ensuring follow through of systemic, institutional and programmatic reforms for boys and young men of color.
Recommend partners and stakeholders to the boys and young men of color work: Is everyone at the table? Who is missing and how can we get them engaged in the MBK Community?