Notice of misprint: Series 9 was held on Friday June 12, 2020 instead of Thursday the 11th.

Outride: COVID 19 Business Threat Seminar

“Embracing risk for driving vision and growth”

The series is grounded in risk intelligence (RI). RI is that process of embracing risks and putting it to work for ensuring your business can survive or thrive during a crisis and beyond. It is also about value creation and protection. About delivering your vision and mission in the face of crisis as well as during the “normal”.

We were delighted to present series nine (9) in the Outride: COVID 19 Business Threat Seminar series yesterday.  Originally scheduled for Thursday the 11, 2020, heavy rains in the USA, Internet woes in Jamaica and Canada sought to outride our participants.

We empathize with those who were still experiencing challenges and had to join by phone or to missed the session.

While we wanted to wait for you; we had to make the week’s delivery timeline, so we did yesterday, June 12, 2020. Nothing would stop our special edition in support of our commitment to The Decade of Evaluation for Action.   And we were richly rewarded by the responses and ease with which attendees stayed  for the event which was held 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM, on a Friday evening.  For that we promise you workshops and discussions that expand on some of the topics touched on as you rollout plans and execute your COVID 19 recovery strategy and actions. Those sessions will also help those who joined the series in the later half,thus making it more difficult for them to complete the series assignment for strenghten their organizations because of the sessions missed.

When: June 11, 2020  |  Time: 3:00 PM EST  | Toronto & New York

Where: Online  | Registration detail below

Cost: Free

Event Programme: Click here to view.

Featured Sessions: 

The Decade of Evaluation for Action – What’s in It for Caribbean Communities presented by Meegan Scott. 

Biography

Shared in that session were the campaign messages for the observation that were provided by conveners– UNFPA, EvalYouth and the Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation.  In addition, the what, whys, who, and how for delivering the intended and desires results of the Decade of was presented.

Meegan shared how evaluation helped to tell where we were in delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1, 5 and 8 (No Poverty, Gender Equality, and Decent Work and Economic Growth).  The gathering examined why those goals were important and reflected on some of the associated indicators and targets. With greater success in delivering those goals globally the Black, Caribbean, Asian and other Minority Ethnic Groups (BCAME) would not  have been hit so hard by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Attendees found answers to the questions:

• What is evaluation?
• How it differs from data analysis?
• How evaluation provides evidence for informing decision making versus data analysis by itself (especially as borrowed from research for another purpose)?
• Why evaluation is critical to delivering the SDGs, pathways of transformation (broad and contextual).

Ten (10) evaluation approaches were presented; and of the ten, seven (7) were highlighted for significant increase in demand and use by community service organizations in the Jamaican and Caribbean diasporic markets.

Among the ten listed were utilization-focused evaluations, randomized control trials, gender-based, humanitarian and empowerment evaluations.  Types of evaluation generally applied at various stages in the life of an intervention, evaluation questions associated with each; the need for better evaluations and capacity building in evaluation was also shared.  Meegan, also shared the Magate Wildhorse commitment related to influential evaluations— facilitating the use of evaluations, partnerships for evaluation, accelerating the SDGs through evaluation, strategic planning, and critical friend evaluation support.

Also shared were four types of influential evaluations, features, utility and impacts of good influential evaluations.  Attendees were encouraged to join and commit to the Decade of Evaluation for Action. We are pleased to note that one attendee is in high gear with planning for the delivery of one action by next week; and another is moving to establish a supporting business..

That session was the second action delivered by Magate Wildhorse as a  committed North America organizational partner in the delivery of the global goals and expected results of the Decade for Evaluation for Action.

Biography

Theo Chambers delivered another laughter extracting power treat, Joy Spot Motivational Session. He reminded participants that “knowledge was not power, but that power was what you do with knowledge”.  “Thank you Theo, Great reminder of how to live life” and  ” well said” were among the comments participants share in response to Theo’s message.

Biography

Andrew Sharpe gifted us with “Bun and Cheese” for life in the session A Moment with Miss Lou.  Participants had the following comments for Andrew, “Enjoyable Love Ms. LOU”, “Great work Andrew”,  “ Nice piece of Jamaica culture @Andrew” and “He’s good, am sorry he did not pursue it as a career”. “I loved it”.  Andrew we at Magate Wildhorse was hearing “Bun and Cheese” by Miss Lou for the first time. Thank you for that treat.

Meegan Scott also delivered the fourth session, COVID 19 Opportunities — SDGs, Evaluation, Performance & Your Pivot (For profits & Non-profits) .

In this session we took a quick recap of the entrepreneurial skills gap of the Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs (See Fact or Fiction). Following the pre-COVID 19 capacity challenges of both for profit and non-profits, Scott challenged the gathering to become industry influencers. She emphasized the need to conduct needs assessment for entrepreneurship and other community development interventions, experiments, case studies, SMARTER and measurable indicators that would stretch and reward organizations and their leaders as they stepped to the COVID 19 challenge.  She also highlighted the need for capacity building in evaluation for both programme and business operations, for  Caribbean communities and the rest of BCAME.  The need to “do it ourselves” when it comes to business recovery as well as purpose and profit for driving the delivery of the SDGs in host and home countries was also stressed. The need for more and better evaluation, advocacy,  grey literature, and community finance was hammered home.

From Session 4 , Getting ready for re-opened markets

Session four is where for-profit leaders got a deep dive into why BCAME did not benefit from stimulus monies and the fact that the writting was on the wall before the funding became available. The 5C’s and 5P’s methods of evaluating credit risk;  periodic cashflow red flag; indicators, results trees and how they were used to track changes in beneficiary outcomes and validate resilience or transformation was covered.  Given, the interest of several participants in the agriculture and food business sector the Making Markets Work for the Poor (M4P) guidelines and examples referenced since the start of series  was expounded on in greater depth yesterday.

Not All Doom and Gloom – Pent Up Demand– Get Ready for Re-Opened Markets

Socio-economic trends globally, sustainable ocean economy (blue economy) opportunities by way of home countries were discussed as was tactics for tapping the COVID 19 BCAME legacy.  Meegan shared that many BCAME businesses thought to be dead in the service sectors will have significant opportunities for filling pent up demand; the need for new inventory by retailers; and heightened demand for variety, plus willingness to bargain shop and to try new things. She cautioned entrepreneurs to get ready to meet the demand, protect health and provide reassurance to clients related to the protection of their health. She left them with  ten tactics for seizing the opportunities presented by COVID 19. And a reminder to plan, execute, monitor, conduct ongoing environmental scans, evaluate, adjust, and update strategy and plans if they are to attain increased risk intelligence and resilience.

What participants had to say about the two sessions presented by Meegan Scott:

“The session was an informative one and there was valuable information shared that a I think that the Caribbean Diaspora could benefit from especially the group that is involved in non-profit organizations”.

“Excellent information”, “Informative session”, “Great presentation Meegan”, “Awesome presentation.  I felt like I was in a PHD class.  Thanks”

“Great point about able to do higher level analysis @ Meegan”.

As always the session ended with the gathering and chit chat among attendees.

Event Rapporteur, Dania Sammott will provide notes from the session report for attendees.

Biography

Join us next Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern for series 10.

If you’ve never been to one of the sessions and would like to join us, please pre-register at the link below.

https://forms.gle/PtpZAT8czWYExWpZ7

Outride: COVID 19 Business Threat Seminar is a global disapora entrepreneurs affair!                                                                                                                            Leaders of mainstream businesses with an interest in doing business with diaspora entrepreneurs are welcome to register for the match making and networking sessions.

Please note that this event is not just for small and micro-businesses, big businesses and big nonprofits can benefit also.

Brought to you by Magate Wildhorse Consulting, and The Community of Practise for Caribbean Immigrant Entrepreneurs (Home of BIDEM Conference & Trade Show)

Advance or maintain the progress.

You can’t spell BAME without the C.  The contribution of the Caribbean has been too significant.  The impact on the Caribbean community is significant and different BCAME (Black, Caribbean, Asian and Minority Ethnic Groups) #BCAME    #BAME