Part 2: Who Are You Really For? Why "We Serve the Neighborhood" Isn't an Answer

Introduction: The Question That Needs to Be Asked

The conference room had that particular quality of uncomfortable silence that comes when someone asks a question no one wants to answer. Fifteen board members sat around a table covered with strategic planning documents, budget projections, and the remnants of someone's optimistic attempt at providing decent coffee. We'd been meeting for three hours, discussing expansion opportunities, new partnership possibilities, and measurement frameworks.

Then Michael, a board member who'd spent thirty years leading a regional manufacturing company before retirement, leaned back in his chair and asked: "So who exactly do we serve?"

The executive director—someone I'd known for years and genuinely respected—smiled with the confidence of someone about to give an easy answer. "We serve the neighborhood. All the families who live here. That's our mission—to create opportunity for everyone in our community."

Michael wasn't satisfied. He pulled out a pen and drew a simple box on his notepad. "Okay, but we just spent an hour debating whether to invest in the new housing development or expand our youth programming. We can't afford both. So I'm asking: Who specifically are we here for? And what does success look like for them? What's the finish line?"

The silence that followed wasn't just uncomfortable—it was revealing. The executive director started to answer, stopped, looked at the strategic plan in front of her, and then admitted: "I'm not sure I can answer that the way you're asking it."

In that moment, everyone in the room realized they'd been operating for nearly eight years—raising millions of dollars, serving thousands of people, convening dozens of partners—without ever answering these foundational questions: Who exactly are we for? What does success mean for them? And can we actually get them there?

I've facilitated versions of this conversation numerous times across my nearly three decades in this work. And what I've learned is that the organizations most likely to be stuck aren't the ones that don't care about people—they're the ones that care deeply but have never done the hard work of defining who those people are and what transformation actually means for them.

In my previous article, I wrote about the quarterback challenge—being held accountable for outcomes you achieve through partners you don't control. But there's an even more fundamental question: What specific population are you committed to advancing, to what specific finish line, and can you realistically get them there?

Most organizations would immediately say: "Of course we're for the people!" But when you look at their strategy, their measurement systems, their resource allocation—the claim doesn't hold up. They've defined success as delivering outputs rather than achieving outcomes. And this distinction isn't semantic. It's the difference between accountability and activity.

Outputs vs. Outcomes: The Distinction Most Organizations Miss

Several years ago, I speaking with a Community Quarterback leader that had built an impressive portfolio—350 units of affordable housing over a decade. Their annual reports showcased beautiful photos, resident testimonials, and charts showing units delivered against targets. By every measure they tracked, they were succeeding.

Then someone on their board asked: "Did we house the people we said we existed to serve?"

No one could answer. They'd never defined who those people were. They knew 350 units were occupied, but they couldn't say whether those units housed families with young children from the neighborhood or empty-nesters from across the city. They couldn't say whether families living there had achieved any stability. They couldn't say whether a single child's life trajectory had changed.

They'd spent a decade delivering an output—housing units—without ever defining the population outcome they were trying to achieve.

Output-focused organizations define their mission around what they do: "We build affordable housing." "We provide quality early childhood education." Success is measured by delivery: units built, children enrolled, workshops conducted. There's no defined finish line for any specific population, which means the organization can operate indefinitely without ever answering: "Did the people we served actually reach a meaningful outcome?"

Outcome-focused organizations define their mission around who they serve and what those people achieve: "We advance children born in this neighborhood to thriving young adulthood." Success is measured by population outcomes: Are specific kids reaching defined developmental milestones, educational achievement, health indicators? The boundaries are specific. The finish line is clear. And because both are defined, these organizations must constantly ask: "What do these specific kids need to reach this finish line, and are we delivering it?"

When I was leading neighborhood development work, I would sometimes humorously explain: "We're a child advancement organization. Creating thriving neighborhoods is what the science tells me is the best way to accomplish child outcomes—eliminating toxic stress through comprehensive neighborhood conditions. If science told me selling popcorn on street corners would get kids from birth to thriving young adulthood, we'd become a popcorn sales organization."

The point was to clarify that thriving neighborhoods are the means, not the end. The end is children reaching thriving adulthood. And the means flow from asking: What does evidence say these kids need to get there?

The answer is comprehensive: stable housing, schools that work, family economic opportunity, safe environments, healthcare access, supportive relationships. The full ecosystem that either supports or undermines child development.

So we built housing, transformed schools, created economic opportunity—because we'd defined our finish line as child outcomes, asked what evidence said kids needed, and designed strategy accordingly.

Most organizations have reversed this logic. They've chosen the means—housing development, early childhood programs, workforce training—without first defining the population outcome end. And because they've never defined the end, they can't reality-test whether their means are sufficient.

Here's why this matters: Output organizations can claim success regardless of transformation. If your mission is "building affordable housing," you succeed by building units—whether those units house your intended population or whether children's lives change.

Outcome organizations must face reality. If your mission is "advancing children to thriving young adulthood," you can't hide behind activity. You have to track whether kids are reaching the finish line. And if they're not, you must confront hard questions about whether your strategy is sufficient.

"Everyone in the Neighborhood" Is a Strategy for Serving No One Well

Once organizations accept the distinction between outputs and outcomes, the next resistance emerges: "We're outcome-focused. We exist to improve outcomes for everyone in our neighborhood."

This is where I deliver uncomfortable news: "Everyone in the neighborhood" isn't a target population. It's strategic avoidance disguised as inclusive values.

I understand the appeal. Saying "we serve everyone" feels equitable and community-centered. It avoids uncomfortable prioritization conversations. But here's the operational reality: You don't have resources to get everyone to any meaningful finish line. You can spread services broadly and touch many lives lightly, or concentrate resources strategically and transform some lives deeply. What you cannot do is serve everyone equally well.

What actually happens is implicit prioritization you never examine. Some families get intensive support because they showed up first or met arbitrary eligibility criteria. Others in greater need don't access services because they didn't know about them or couldn't navigate the system.

The prioritization is happening—you're just doing it reactively rather than strategically.

The Concentric Circles model forces explicit, values-driven prioritization:

Priority 1 is your target population—the specific people you commit to getting to a defined finish line. Every strategic decision is designed primarily to serve them. When you have limited program slots, Priority 1 families get them. When measuring success, you're asking: "Are Priority 1 people reaching the finish line?"

In the neighborhood work I led, our Priority 1 was specific: children ages 0-18, from families below 50% area median income, typically Latino immigrant, living in our defined geography, attending the neighborhood elementary school and then matriculating to our neighborhood Jr/High School where we had most influence—approximately 2000 children and their families.

That specificity flowed from our finish line (children reaching thriving young adulthood), understanding of what kids need (toxic stress elimination during critical developmental years), honest assessment of our influence (strongest at the elementary school), and realistic capacity (we could go deep with 2000 families, not 15,000 people).

Priority 2 represents the closest impact population—people whose support directly affects Priority 1. For child-focused work, this is typically families of Priority 1 children. We provided economic supports and housing assistance to parents not because adult outcomes were our finish line, but because family stability impacts child outcomes.

Priority 3 represents the next degree of separation—other children in the neighborhood not attending our priority school, plus their families. They could access some programs and benefited from neighborhood improvements, but didn't drive strategic decisions.

Priority 4 and beyond—other residents, businesses, adjacent neighborhoods. They might benefit from commercial corridor improvements or policy advocacy, but weren't the focus of resource-intensive efforts.

Some organizations need even more specificity: Priority 1 might be all students currently attending X Elementary where you have maximum influence. Priority 2: their families. Priority 3: students in your geography attending other schools. Priority 4: their families. Priority 5: other neighborhood residents. Priority 6: business owners.

This layered specificity shows genuine commitment to depth over breadth.

The model creates honest transparency. When a Priority 3 family asks about intensive case management, you can say: "That program is reserved for families whose children attend Smith Elementary, where we have deepest partnerships. But you can access our financial literacy workshops, and let me connect you with our partner organization that provides case management in your school's area."

You're not rejecting them—you're being honest about strategic focus while providing pathways to support.

The model also creates accountability. You can track whether you're reaching Priority 1 populations. Organizations I've consulted with discovered that despite stated commitment to most vulnerable families, 75% of intensive services went to relatively stable Priority 2 or 3 families—because they were easier to work with and showed faster results.

The Concentric Circles model made that mission drift visible and correctible.

I won't pretend this is comfortable. At a community meeting where an organization introduced their framework, a long-time resident stood up frustrated: "So because I've held onto my home and my kids are teenagers, my family isn't a priority? I've lived here twenty-five years, volunteered for eight years, and now you're saying we're second-tier?"

The executive director didn't retreat: "You're right that this feels like valuing some families over others. In terms of where our most intensive resources go, that's exactly what we're doing. Because here's the truth: We've never had enough resources to serve everyone equally. We've always been making these choices—just not strategically or transparently. What we're doing now is being honest about prioritization that was already happening, and ensuring it's aligned with getting specific kids to specific outcomes rather than serving whoever shows up first."

She continued: "Your family still benefits from neighborhood improvements—school transformation, housing development, safety initiatives. You can access community programs. But when we have five slots in intensive family support and ten families interested, those slots go to families with young children experiencing housing instability, because that's the population we've committed to getting to a finish line."

The resident didn't leave happy. But three people approached afterward saying: "Thank you for being honest. We always knew you couldn't serve everyone equally. Now we understand how decisions get made."

That's the trade-off. You lose comfortable ambiguity and must defend choices that feel exclusionary. But you gain clarity about who you're for, ability to track whether you're reaching them, and focus required to get some people to a finish line rather than providing light-touch support to everyone while getting no one across any threshold.

Reality Testing: Can You Actually Get Them There?

Once you've defined your target population and their finish line, you face the question that separates aspirational mission statements from implementable strategy: Can you actually get them there?

This reality test has three parts:

Part One: What does your target population actually need to reach the finish line?

If your finish line is "children reaching thriving young adulthood," you can't answer based on what you wish were true or what you're already good at providing. You must ask: What does science and evidence actually say these kids need?

The answer, as research from Harvard's Center on the Developing Child has made clear, is elimination of toxic stress through comprehensive neighborhood conditions. Kids need stable quality housing, schools that work, family economic stability, safe environments, healthcare access, early childhood supports, caring adult networks—the full ecosystem.

You can't cherry-pick. You can't say "we'll focus on education and hope someone else handles housing." The science doesn't allow that. Toxic stress compounds across domains. A child in unstable housing can't fully benefit from a great school. The systems interlock.

Part Two: What can you realistically influence or deliver?

Now comes brutal honesty. Given your actual resources—budget, staff capacity, organizational expertise—what can you realistically deliver or influence? Not what you aspire to. What you can actually affect now or within realistic timeframe.

Do you have real influence at the neighborhood school, or just aspirational relationships? Can you affect housing development, or are you dependent on market forces? Can you create economic pathways for parents, or are you constrained by labor markets you don't control?

In the work I led, we eventually had real influence over the elementary school (through deep principal and district partnership), housing development in defined geography (through our CDFI and development partnerships), and local leadership development. We had moderate influence over commercial corridor development and healthcare access. We had minimal influence over labor markets, state education policy, and regional economic conditions.

That honest assessment shaped everything. We built strategy around areas of real influence, partnered strategically for moderate-influence areas, and acknowledged some things affecting our kids were beyond our capacity—meaning we had to build that capacity, partner with others who had it, or accept that limitation in defining our finish line.

Part Three: Is there alignment between what they need and what you can deliver?

This is where organizations discover strategy-reality alignment or strategy-fantasy alignment.

If your target population needs the full ecosystem but you can only deliver early childhood programming, there's fundamental misalignment. You're claiming accountability for outcomes you cannot realistically achieve.

If you've committed to all children 0-18 but only have capacity for 50 families, there's misalignment. Your population commitment exceeds realistic capacity.

If you've defined success as economic mobility but have no influence over labor markets, housing costs, or school quality—just an afterschool program—there's catastrophic misalignment.

When you discover misalignment, you have three choices:

First, narrow your target population until it matches realistic capacity. "We commit to 50 families with children 0-8, not all 500 families." This feels like failure to organizations wanting to serve everyone, but it's actually the path to genuine impact.

Second, expand your capacity or partnerships until they match your population commitment. "We need to build these additional capabilities and formalize these partnerships to serve 500 families." This is legitimate if you can realistically build that capacity—but requires honest assessment of whether that's achievable or aspirational.

Third, acknowledge you're an output-focused service provider and stop claiming outcome accountability you can't deliver. "We provide quality early childhood education. We hope this contributes to long-term outcomes, but we're not claiming accountability for getting kids to thriving young adulthood because we don't control enough of what they need." This is honest and appropriate—there's no shame in being excellent at service provision.

What you cannot do is maintain the misalignment while claiming transformation. That's not strategy. That's wishful thinking that wastes resources and betrays community trust.

The Liberation of Specificity

Three years after that uncomfortable board meeting, I visited the organization again. The executive director who couldn't answer "Who are we for?" had worked through multiple refinement iterations. They'd defined their target population with precision: children ages 0-5 in a defined geography, from families below 50% AMI, attending one of two elementary schools where they had deep influence. About 85 children and their families.

They'd defined their finish line: kindergarten readiness measured by multiple developmental domains, with sustained support through third grade for reading proficiency. Not "thriving young adulthood" for all kids 0-18—they'd accepted that was beyond realistic capacity. But genuine transformation in early years for a specific population they could commit to serving deeply.

They'd reality-tested ruthlessly, acknowledged they couldn't influence labor markets or healthcare systems sufficiently, and formalized partnerships with organizations that could deliver those supports for their Priority 1 families. They'd stopped trying to serve everyone and redirected resources to depth with 85 kids rather than breadth across 800.

The executive director looked different—more settled, more confident. "That process felt brutal at the time," she told me. "Having to choose a small number of kids when hundreds needed support. Having to tell community members we couldn't serve them directly. It felt like admitting failure."

She walked me through their measurement system—simple, clear, focused entirely on whether their 85 kids were reaching developmental milestones. "But once we got clear about who we're for and what success means for them, everything else got easier. We know exactly what partnerships we need. We can allocate every dollar strategically. We can tell any funder exactly what outcomes we're accountable for and whether we're achieving them. And for the first time in my career, I believe we're going to get these kids to the finish line."

She showed me data: 78 of 85 kids on track for kindergarten readiness. Of 40 kids in the program for three full years, 38 had reached developmental milestones. Of families served intensively, 70% had achieved housing stability and 60% had made measurable economic progress.

"Are these numbers perfect? No. Are we serving as many people as we used to? No. But can I tell you with confidence that we're transforming lives? Yes. Finally, yes."

That's what I've learned after twenty-eight years: The path to transformation runs through specificity. You must define who you're for with precision. You must define what success means for them with clarity. You must reality-test whether you can get them there with honesty. And you must accept that this specificity means serving fewer people more deeply rather than serving everyone superficially.

This work is uncomfortable. It forces you to disappoint stakeholders, acknowledge limitations, and create accountability that exposes you to risk of public failure.

But the alternative—strategic ambiguity that lets organizations claim they're "for everyone" while never committing to getting anyone to a defined finish line—serves no one well. Not staff who can't explain what they're accomplishing. Not partners who can't figure out how to align. Not funders who can't evaluate whether investments are working. And certainly not children and families who need transformation, not just activity.

Yet if this work is so clearly necessary, why do so many organizations—including experienced, well-intentioned community quarterbacks—avoid it? In my next article, we'll explore the Gateway Loop: why smart organizations stay stuck revisiting the same strategic questions year after year, the powerful incentives that reward avoiding this foundational work, and how to break the cycle of productive discomfort that actually leads to clarity and impact.

For now, I'll leave you with the questions that matter most:

Can you state your target population and their finish line in one sentence? Not "we serve the neighborhood" but "We commit to getting [specific population] to [specific outcome]." If you can't state this clearly, you haven't done the foundational work.

Are you an output organization or an outcome organization? Look honestly at how you measure success. If it's primarily about what you delivered—services provided, units built, programs operated—you're output-focused. If it's about what specific people achieved—mobility, stability, educational attainment—you're outcome-focused. Which are you? And is that who you want to be?

If you used the Concentric Circles model to define your Priority 1 population—the people you're committing to get to a finish line—how many people would that be? Be brutally honest: Given what science says they need and what you can realistically influence, can you actually get them there?