Mapping Impact by Fellows

What does mobilization by GFA mean?

When a person is mobilized by GFA, they become a part of the intentional, strategic, and ongoing process by which they leverage their diverse skills, networks, and insights to access and deploy resources, as well as advocate for them. As such, they drive positive and lasting changes by expanding influence, fostering relationships, navigating complex dynamics, generating tangible outcomes, and promoting institutional transformations for sustainable impact in the public sector. 

It's about building relationships, understanding complex dynamics, and creating real, lasting impacts in the places you work and communities you serve.

Why did GFA undertake a study of its mobilization? 

Our why is always rooted in uplifting our community and their work! So, in the fall of 2022, GFA reached out to Spark Learning because we suspected that our impact went beyond the Fellows who participate in our program, their supervisors, and even their colleagues. We also did this to lay the foundation for supporting governments in boosting their talent development and retention efforts more broadly through technical assistance, stakeholder convenings, and curriculum development.

We refined our approach that moved us closer to measuring our larger impact, especially since GFA committed to mobilizing 1,000 proximate leaders in 10 states by 2025 in our Strategic Vision. The question of how we track and measure the spread of our approach to making change is a challenging one to answer, but it is mission-critical to our goals. So, GFA took on this study and now we see that it can have real-world implications for the public sector at large.

What did the study reveal about GFA's impact? 

We learned that GFA is mobilizing a lot more people than we thought! Working with Spark Learning, GFA learned that GFA’s 31 Fellows were, in fact, mobilizing 1,371 leaders! This meant that GFA had been significantly underestimating the impact of the individuals participating in our program.

How will the study be used to strengthen GFA's mission in the near future? 

We’re currently piloting a tool based on the report to more accurately measure our Fellows' impact. GFA will also be using this report to develop tools to support governments with their talent goals beyond the Fellowship.

Lastly, we’re working to share this report with other public service professionals in the field to show how much one person can actually change things in government. It will also help more people understand and adapt our approach to making an impact to increase their own.

If your organization is ready to partner with us, then contact me at sophanite@govforamerica.org to collaborate!