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The poet Mary Oliver wrote that “artists are not trying to help the world go around, but forward.”
This passage struck a chord with me. It sums up perfectly something we’ve been thinking about at Deloitte; namely, how the arts can inspire a new way of looking at hard problems. I didn’t have a full appreciation of this until I saw how Sam Pressler and the organization he founded, Armed Services Arts Partnership, is helping military veterans and their families move through the difficult transition of coming home from war. Through comedy and storytelling workshops, ASAP helps veterans re-enter, find a voice, and thrive in their communities.
What’s unique about Sam’s program is that it starts with the notion that veterans aren’t broken. It takes a whole-person approach to helping them become their best selves. The results are powerful. So, it got us thinking: Where else might this human-centered, arts-powered approach work? Take, for example, the provision of government benefits. Nearly 50 million people receive government assistance and 20% of post 9/11 veterans experience PTSD each year. However, social services meant to address society’s vulnerable populations–from welfare recipients to military veterans–miss the mark. The system is fragmented. Several U.S. Departments and Agencies administer dozens of programs from cash assistance to childcare, from healthcare to help paying monthly utilities. And though this is slowly changing, the system tends to view customers as problems to be solved, leaving them feeling misunderstood or lost. The result is that we ask people in the midst of economic struggle to navigate a web of byzantine rules,
So at Deloitte we’re asking ourselves: How might we shift the way we deliver social services from a problem-centered to a people-centered approach?
We believe empathy is at the heart of the answer. We believe we need to put people at the center of these complex challenges and solve from their perspective. And we believe the arts hold a special power to do this. Through pro bono projects that give military veterans and their families the skills and a stage to share their stories to employing human-centered design techniques to identify the unarticulated needs of families receiving public benefits, we are experimenting with methods and tools that humanize the delivery of government services and create openings for breakthrough solutions.
We think we’re on to something, and we’re hoping to take our experience to SXSW this year, and would love your help to get there. We’ve put together a diverse panel of public, private and nonprofit leaders and artists to highlight examples of how the arts can shift the perspective from problem to solution, from a person’s weaknesses to her strengths. We’ll explore what it will take to incorporate art into policy and program design.
We’d love your help. Vote for our proposal and share with your networks. @ASAP_Vets #@DeloitteUS @DeloitteHealth #SXSW