WHAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE MAKER?
We launched Todd Stein Communications to help digital health “difference makers” make a difference. Which begs the question, what really is a difference maker? The term is overused. Coaches lean on it to celebrate their best players. Business consultants use it to describe the ideal worker. To Stephen Colbert, the phrase is a joke ripe for a series of hilarious sketches.
As much as we love Cobert, we think difference makers deserve to be taken seriously. More than great athletes or entrepreneurs, true difference makers improve and inspire the lives of people both inside their organizations and in the world at large.
In our years as journalists and communications professionals, we’ve been fortunate to know and work alongside a number of difference makers. We learned a lot from them about the value of relationships, the importance of clear communication, and the power of storytelling.
If you think of yourself as a difference maker, we’d love to put those lessons to work for you.
GIVING BACK
In the spirit of making a difference, 5 percent of this agency’s net revenue goes to support Nurse-Family Partnership, a nonprofit that transforms the first thousand days of life for babies born to moms living in poverty across the United States. Nurse-Family Partnership is the only early childhood program that meets the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy’s “Top Tier” of evidence; as the program with the strongest evidence that it prevents child abuse and neglect; and as a program that produces significant economic return on investment.
Each year 380,000 children are born to first-time mothers living in poverty in the United States. Many of these mothers are young, single, socially isolated, and without a high school diploma. Their children face major barriers to leading healthy lives and escaping poverty, because their mothers lack the resources and knowledge to create a better life for their families. Nurse-Family Partnership is a non-profit that transforms the first thousand days of life for babies born to moms living in poverty across the United States. Beginning during pregnancy, and until the child is two, nurses visit moms at home to educate them on parenting, share resources, and perform health checks.
PROVEN RESULTS
A cornerstone of Nurse-Family Partnership is the extensive research on the model conducted over the last three decades. Randomized controlled trials were conducted with three diverse populations beginning in Elmira, New York, in 1977; in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1990; and in Denver, Colorado, in 1994. All three trials targeted first-time, low-income mothers. Follow-up research continues today, studying the long-term outcomes for mothers and children in these three trials.
This approach has contributed to the NFP program being identified as the only early childhood program that meets the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy’s “Top Tier” of evidence; as the program with the strongest evidence that it prevents child abuse and neglect; and as a program that produces significant economic return on investment.
See the impact of Nurse-Family Partnership programs for yourself here.
