What gets measured gets managed. That’s the conventional wisdom, courtesy of the world of business management. We like to modify it slightly for broader applicability: what’s measured gets purposefully (and hopefully effectively) changed.
For this reason, we should celebrate the Equity Indicators tool as a crucial step down the path towards racial equity, a state in which life outcomes can no longer be predicted by race.
Achieving racial equity will require a great deal of intentional, systemic change. With the Equity Indicators we have more clarity on where that change needs to take place and how we will know whether our efforts are moving the needle.
The road that led to the Equity Indicators was neither short nor smooth. But the process that yielded it is part of why we believe it will be more useful than other regional measurement initiatives. While many people used the word “equity,” few could articulate what that would practically look like in their work or for St. Louis residents, and many sectors lacked a shared way to measure that change.
Producing the final dashboard took dozens of meetings by the project manager, Cristina Garmendia, with stakeholders and government officials to do the difficult and messy work of building consensus and commitment to a shared vision.
Without these meetings, the impact of the tool would have been very different – even if on the surface the indicators looked exactly the same. Imagine that Garmendia had gone into her office, shut the door, and pulled together a tool comprised of the same 72 indicators without input from anyone else. It would have been much easier and far faster. It also would have been less likely to be used or to endure. Process is as important a product as the end goal, especially when the value of this tool lies in our ongoing willingness to be vulnerable, invite scrutiny, and lean into discomfort.
Another example of the radically collaborative nature of the Equity Indicators lies in the work, led by the United Way, to expand the tool to the regional level this spring. This involved the United Way making the difficult decision to redirect similar work that was already underway to be in better regional alignment. They understood that, while it would be painful to pause and even take a few steps back on their progress, it would ultimately yield a much stronger, regionally impactful product.
The Equity Indicators tool isn’t perfect. Numbers never are – we should keep that in mind when we’re trying to determine how to use them. These numbers are a tool we can leverage to gain clarity on where our inequities lie and to catalyze solutions-oriented conversations. They are a reference point to change systems and policies and to help us understand where and whether we’re making progress.
But the numbers are only a tool. Like with any tool, if they are not used well, it won’t really matter how sophisticated they are.
We cannot permit the Equity Indicators to become a check-the-box activity, an outward demonstration of a superficial commitment to racial equity. This is a responsibility we must all shoulder.
That starts by reading it. Yes, we know, it’s long: 262 pages. Would it help if we said it’s a pretty quick read? If digging into the whole thing isn’t your cup of tea, we recommend the executive summary and the helpful context found in the letters from Garmendia, Nicole Hudson and Patrick Brown. Then jump to just the areas that are of greatest interest and applicability to you.
If you have the appetite, though, we encourage you to go through it all – at least the summary pages at the beginning of each section – because disparities are interrelated. To meaningfully impact these numbers will require that we grapple with this complexity.
After reflecting on the numbers, we must plan, then implement, then evaluate once more. The Equity Indicators are meant to be updated annually: we must ensure the city and the region continue in their commitment to do so. We should build on the inaugural Equity Indicators report by starting to collect data on the indicators in the “what metrics are missing and why” sections. What we measure is a reflection of our collective priorities. It’s not okay that we don’t have measures of family housing instability, rates of being unbanked, or early childhood education enrollment.
When the United Way releases its regional version of the Equity Indicators, we need to do all of the above with it, too. It’s an iterative process, as necessary as it is uncomfortable. But it’s our way out of this state of deep inequity that we have allowed ourselves to reach.
Karishma Furtado is research and data catalyst and David Dwight IV is senior strategy catalyst at Forward Through Ferguson.
