April 27, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
Denver
The author Chip Heath urged foundation officials to turn their burgeoning interest in measuring outcomes and effectiveness toward “finding the bright spots,” in a breakfast speech at the annual meeting of the Council on Foundations.
Mr. Heath, a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a co-author with his brother Dan of Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, cited an example from his new book that focused on malnourished children in Vietnam.
Jerry Sternin, working for Save the Children in 1990, knew the conventional explanations for malnutrition: poor sanitation, nearly universal poverty, lack of clean water. He dubbed such facts TBU — “true but useless.” So he went to a village and found children who were a little taller and healthier than others and looked for things they were doing differently.
All mothers were feeding their children rice, but the mothers of the healthy kids were mixing in sweet-potato greens and brine shrimp — providing important vitamins and protein. Mr. Sternin brought families together in groups of 10 so that the parents of healthy children could share their meal-preparation techniques with others. The program ultimately improved nutrition for 2.2 million children in Vietnam, according to Mr. Heath.
“There is lots of TBU analysis in your field,” Mr. Heath told foundation officials. “Maybe you can get some insights by turning that tremendous analytical analysis to your successes.”
