Are we making enough of a difference? Are we making the right kind of difference? When those of us working to improve people’s lives — be it through nonprofits, philanthropy, schools, or government — begin our different kinds of work, do we ask the critical question: To what end?

In this post, I discuss the second prerequisite to getting to the to-what-end answer. Specifically, it’s to understand the differences in the work we do — some of which is like giving a fish to someone who’s hungry; some of which is like teaching that hungry person to fish; and some of it sits between or straddles both.

The objective of drawing this differentiation is to identify which specific efforts in our work are the first line of support to meet basic needs when people are not able to fulfill them on their own, and which efforts specifically advance people to meet milestones along a lifelong pathway. Each is essential, as is drawing a distinction between the types of efforts.

Today, I believe policies, programs, and systems generally fall into one of the two “fish” categories — “feed” or “teach” — and some might do a bit of both. This differentiation can be applied nearly across the board, from a soup kitchen in a church basement to a program to prepare students for educational success after secondary school.

In the work we do, I’ve come to realize the power of starting any of our efforts with the to-what-end question. Asking this question can be powerful, especially — but not exclusively — for helping us identify where those efforts are centered on the pathway to lifelong success. Making to what end the driver of what we do is a key to achieving population-level change.

Read the full article about nonprofit work by Andrew Wolk at Medium.