Building Blocks of Change 

In 2002, Rebecca Leet researched, analyzed, and reported the remarkable transformation of one of the nation's premier United Way organizations, the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta. The UWMA experience has reverberated throughout the national system, which adopted a strategic plan in 2002 calling upon all United Ways to become community organizers and change agents along the model of Atlanta and other innovative United Ways.

The Building Blocks of Change: Details of What Changed at UWMA and How is the companion publication to From Fundraiser to Change Agent: The Story of Transforming United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta.  This excerpt focuses on message-related lessons UWMA learned in the process of transforming itself.

More than six years into the transformation, UWMA was still working to express, clearly and briefly, what it was doing.  It was making progress, and among the lessons it learned through trial and error were these:

• Be wary of communicating change with too much definition too early in a transformative process.  UWMA first set its sights on progress in five focus areas.  These morphed into four outcome areas, and later into 13 indicators of success.  Transformation implies changing, and messaging has to be flexible enough to accommodate that.

• Recognize that it might be hard to know what to focus on.  As it evolved its future direction, UWMA struggled over presenting itself as a change agent or as a community safety provider, since safety was the dominant local concern.

• Consider using "layering" to handle the complexity of the change message. One way to present the UWMA message was in a series of concentric circles.  The core message was that UWMA was in the business of creating safer neighborhoods.  Moving outward, the next circle articulated the strategies for doing that.  The next circle identified the resources needed. The final circle identified partners with whom UWMA was working.