New Resource To Inform Social Impact

PROVO, Utah – Mar 30, 2018 – Whether it is adult literacy in Alabama or domestic violence in Nigeria, learning more about social issues and how to make an impact for good in solving them can be difficult. So many organizations are tackling the seemingly endless amount of issues, but where can one go for accurate information? 

Ballard Brief, a new online publication from the Ballard Center for Economic Self-Reliance, provides information and answers for everyone from everyday innovators to professional social entrepreneurs to learn more about issues they are interested in.

This Friday, 30 March, from 2-4 p.m. in 251 TNRB, Ballard Brief will have its kickoff event, highlighting research students have done on social issues and hearing from keynote speaker Tran Trang, an Echoing Green Fellow. 

“Each brief will discuss the context of a problem and summarize key practices and practitioners that deserve attention,” says Aaron Miller, public administration professor and faculty advisor for Ballard Brief. “Our goal is to be widely recognized as the best place to turn for learning about a wide range of social issues.”

The briefs will cover topics from a specific demographic and geographical area by boiling down complex issues so readers can have access to succinct and understandable information.

“What we are trying to do with Ballard Brief is summarize high-level data so people can come to one place and get a really good overview of what an issue’s causes are, what the consequences are, and what people are doing right now to solve it,” says Marissa Getts, editor in chief of Ballard Brief.

Getts has been working for two years on developing Ballard Brief and anticipates the publication to continue to grow after the Friday launch. The briefs will cover a wide range of topics, including access to clean water in rural Malawi, flooding in urban Nigeria, and excessive use of force by police in the United States.

Ballard Brief writer and editor Alyssa Clark says the research she has done on these issues and others has been comforting for her because she has learned more about communities of changemakers who care about issues and who are making an effort to create change.

“I remember trying to learn about hunger in Africa when I was in middle school,” Clark says. “I wish I'd had a resource like this to help me find legitimate information about social issues. I think Ballard Brief supplies an incredibly valuable resource to anyone who wants to get involved in solving social issues.”

If you have a social issue you want to learn more about or you want to submit an idea for a brief, send an email to ballardbrief@byu.edu. Register for the kickoff event here.