Amplify Your Impact.
We can all thank research institutions and their rigorous analysis of public policy for countless improvements in our daily lives. Societal benefits like dramatic reductions in lead exposure, declining teen birth rates, and increased access to quality early care and education can be traced back, in part, to researchers who sought ways to share their expertise so people could be better off than before.
In today’s unprecedented times, researchers and research institutions, within academia and outside of it, are in crisis. Ambivalence about data and evidence is at an all-time high. The rising cost of higher education paired with shrinking access to it has led Americans to question whether universities can truly claim to be a public good. Meanwhile, philanthropy’s commitment to building evidence and data at non-academic research institutions continues to descend further down funders’ lists of priorities.
Now, more than ever, research institutions are called to have greater impact and demonstrate their value to society.
At Jones-Taylor Strategies, we work with individual researchers, research teams, and entire research centers to deepen and expand your impact. We know the power evidence and data have to inform public policy and practice, to enhance the public’s understanding of policy debates, and, ultimately, to improve people’s lives. We help you get your work into the hands of the people who can do the most with it.
We also recognize that, as higher education adopts austerity measures and non-academic research institutions face stiff competition from other funder priorities, researchers are increasingly overwhelmed and discouraged. Furthermore, we know researchers may feel a tension between conducting rigorous research and having impact. We have deep experience navigating this tension with researchers and helping you see how the two are not mutually exclusive, but rather mutually reinforcing.
Let’s work together to rebuild confidence that research still matters in these times.
Impact Development | Our Approach
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Assess.
First, we learn about you, how you currently think about impact, and the successes and challenges your research has had in having impact. We do this to get a better sense of your readiness to center impact in your work.
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Define.
What does impact mean to you and your colleagues? We help you define what impact means in your context so you know how to achieve it.
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Plan.
We recognize that researchers never start with an answer in mind, but rather a well considered question. We work with you to incorporate impact into how you develop your questions. And we help you identify key indicators and intermediate outcomes so you can gauge your progress toward impact. We do this without compromising the rigor of your research all while increasing the likelihood that it will reach and inform the people who can do the most with it.
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Engage.
Researchers play a critical role in having social impact, but you are not the only players. We help you understand the unique role you play in your impact ecosystem. Then we support you to identify those other parts of the ecosystem that will be most effective in working toward improving people’s lives. And most important, we equip you with skills and tools to engage meaningfully with them over time.
Our Services
Schedule a call,
Identify your goals,
Amplify your impact.
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Cohort training for individual researchers who want to learn how to make their work more impactful.
Researchers are asked to have more impact, but are not given the tools to succeed. We bring individual researchers together for cohort-based learning to develop the skills and confidence it takes to produce impactful research.
We help researchers:
Create a theory of impact
Map your impact ecosystem
Build competence in engaging other parts of your impact ecosystem effectively
Track your progress on the road to impact
Options:
Four half-day virtual sessions. Individual researchers join a cohort of researchers. Spread across four months.
Four half-day in-person or virtual sessions. A host group forms the cohort. Spread across four months.
More one-on-one support outside of the cohort also available.
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Coaching for research team/practice area leaders plus cohort impact training.
Amplifying your team’s impact won’t happen overnight nor on its own. Leaders need additional support to guide your teams toward impact.
We help research team leaders:
Learn how to support their researchers to increase their impact
Build coherence across your research team/practice area
Sustain focus through resistance to change
Assess progress toward impact
Package includes:
Cohort Impact Training
Planning call
Five one-on-one coaching sessions
Follow-up call 4-6 weeks after final impact training session
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Support for transforming a research institution (or self-contained research center) to center impact in their research.
Shifting from doing research for research's sake to research for impact requires more than technical skill. Cultural and structural shifts must also occur if the transformation is to succeed. Researchers need to to be assured that the culture of the organization, along with its incentives and performance management structures match the move toward impact.
While providing researchers with technical skills, we also help leadership teams:
Identify the structural changes that need to be in place to reflect the focus on impact
Align culture, values, and behaviors to shift toward impact
Build trust, accountability, and connection
Connect everyday actions to long-term goals
Package includes:
Cohort Impact Train-the-Trainer Trainings
Cohort and 1:1 coaching for research team/practice area leads
Structural and systems assessment
Recommendations for systems changes needed to align with shift toward impact
Change management support for senior leadership
Number and frequency of engagements dependent on size and scope.
“Myra led a transformative collaborative effort to define impact and align our strategy to achieve it – work that’s now deeply embedded across the organization. Her clear vision and strategic nature were invaluable during a time of organizational change. The result: sharper focus and greater impact.”
Sarah Rosen Wartell — President, Urban Institute
About Myra | Impact
Myra submitting her dissertation. (Photo taken by her (then) 7-year-old daughter, with her (then) 5-year-old son standing by.)
After receiving a Ph.D. from Yale University, Myra Jones-Taylor opted for a career in public policy. While she has not devoted her career to research, she has always relied on evidence to inform her work.
Jones-Taylor Strategies’ approach is informed by Myra’s years of experience as a qualitative researcher, policy maker, and senior non-profit leader at both a national policy and advocacy organization, Zero to Three, and a national research institute, Urban Institute. She brings two decades of experience educating legislative and executive branches at all levels of government throughout the country; shaping the media’s understanding of public policy with on- and off-the-record interviews with major print publications, and live on-air radio, local television, and major cable news interviews; and building coalitions among community stakeholders and advocates.
Most recently, as SVP of policy impact and external affairs, Myra led Urban Institute’s successful effort to shift its 300+ researchers to center impact in their work, all while retaining the highest standards of research. And now, we bring her passion for this work to research institutions across the country.
Myra testifying in support of increased funding for infants and toddlers before the House Appropriations Sub-Committee. Pictured here joking with Co-chairs Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D) and Rep. Tom Cole (R) about the temperature in their hearing room, Myra can help researchers speak both from a place of expertise while being your authentic selves. (And, yes, that is Academy Award winner Kathy Bates behind Myra. She was also there that day to testify for increased funding for medical research.)