Deborah Marton
Deborah Marton is the Executive Director of Van Alen Institute, a non-profit organization that promotes equitable cities through inclusive design. She has previously held leadership roles at the New York Restoration Project and the Design Trust for Public Space, and has also worked on projects such as the Fresh Kills Master Plan and the creation of a new purpose-built NYC taxi. Deborah holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, New York University School of Law, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
But the challenge with impact investing is the ROI. It works well when it comes to things like windmills or alternative fuels because there are easy ways to measure that. As the cost of the technology goes down, there's a bottom-line profit that's quantifiable in dollars or whatever currency. When it comes to social change, sometimes the person who invests isn't the same one who reaps the benefit. The ROI of social benefits isn't always quantifiable in a traditional way.
— Deborah Marton
Interview transcript
Can you start by introducing yourself, sharing your background and how you got to where you are now? Maybe even share something about your everyday routine.
Sure. So, I mean, I want to start, Mikkel, by just saying, for the record, that working with you and your team as Van Alen advanced, our strategy was really one of the high points of my professional experience. So, whatever you're doing, I'm on board. I just wanted you to know that. So, I'm Deborah Martin, I'm the executive director of Van Alen Institute. Van Alen works to create equitable cities through inclusive design. My background is that I am a first-generation American. I'm the first person in my family to be educated at a university level. I started my career as an attorney, and I was a corporate litigator. And I realized that that work wasn't going to provide an avenue to do the kind of impactful work that I wanted to do among communities that were new to the country or that were, let's say, not experiencing the kind of benefits of our culture and of democracy that I did as an individual. So, I went back to school, and I received a degree in landscape architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design, where I focused on urban systems and urban ecology. And since that time, I've been working in the civic arena on large-scale civic projects. I've worked for New York City's parks department, I worked with Field Operations, James Corner Field Operations, which is the firm that designed the Highline, for example, among other projects. And then I began working in the nonprofit sector, for three nonprofits: Design Trust for Public Space, New York Restoration Project, and now, Van Alen. Really, I want to say, as soon as I started working in the nonprofit sector, my focus became the intersection between social justice and the built environment. And that started with Design Trust. Certainly, at New York Restoration Project, which is a land manager, it's not in the thought leadership space, New York Restoration Project owns community.
Okay. Your restoration project owns and manages open spaces in historically disinvested communities in New York City. When I was recruited to come to Van Alen, it was with a specific charge from the board. Van Alen has been around for almost 130 years, and we've been in the space of thought leadership and education in the architecture and allied fields. But we feel that we want to do work that's impactful, and we want to direct our own destiny. The board told me that they were looking for me to bring a new direction, and the direction that we have taken is that our mission is to create equitable cities through inclusive design. We've shifted our way of working.
The focus of the work shifted from providing education and convening for architects to collaborating with the architectural and allied professions. The goal was to partner with leaders and historically disinvested communities to realize their vision for their built environment. Rather than educating architects, the work became about helping people who live in historically disinvested communities. My day-to-day work involves leading a team of 10 as we build credibility and experience in the social justice and built environment equity space. Thanks to a program we launched at the beginning of the pandemic called Neighborhoods Now, we were able to accelerate our experience working this way. Now, we are looking to scale the impact by training similar organizations in other cities in the US to use the methodology that has proven effective in New York. We continue to collaborate with leaders in seven different historically disinvested, mostly black and brown communities here in New York City.
Okay, so you mentioned transitioning from supporting educational architects to supporting actual communities. In this new paradigm, how would you define impact? Specifically, how would you define an impactful dollar? I realize this is a big question, but there are probably better and worse ways to spend money, especially in the impact funding or impact giving spaces. Any thoughts on this?
Well, there are different ways to think about it. I'll address it from how we do it at Van Alen, and then more broadly, how it can be done. We have a theory of change around our institutional theory, and we've invested a great deal in developing that theory of change. Our North Star is our mission, which is equitable cities. Our theory of change centers around inclusive design, where we co-create programs with leaders in historically disinvested communities. We approach this in a humble way because we don't know what a leader in Bed Stuy or Washington Heights or Jackson Heights, or many of our cities, historically disinvested communities, knows better than we do what they need. So we have a theory of change and a measurement framework. We're actually working with JP Morgan's Force For Good initiative right now, which is an initiative where JP Morgan lends their coders and back-end designers to create assist systems for nonprofits. We're about to start work for them because we have our theory of change and a measurement framework that identifies qualitative and quantitative data that will give us the indices of whether our theory is actually working. The thing that JP Morgan's team will design is the place to put that data. That's how we do it.
But the challenge with impact investing is the ROI. It works well when it comes to things like windmills or alternative fuels because there are easy ways to measure that. As the cost of the technology goes down, there's a bottom-line profit that's quantifiable in dollars or whatever currency. When it comes to social change, sometimes the person who invests isn't the same one who reaps the benefit. The ROI of social benefits isn't always quantifiable in a traditional way.
I actually just wrote an article that's about to come out in a journal called Vital City. In the article, I talk about systemic challenges in New York City, specifically. But at the end of the article, I mention that there are outcomes that we all want when it comes to poverty. The bottom-line question here is poverty, let's face it. The disconnection between agency that you have in low-income communities is that there isn't the agency because people are working too hard to feed themselves and educate their children and not get murdered because the crime rate is higher in their neighborhoods.
People won't magically believe that there's some ROI, but there isn't always. I think a few ways have gone down the road of looking at other kinds of returns. So the social impact bond is one that hasn't really worked because it's a linear thing that requires very easily measurable outcomes. For example, there's the famous recidivism study that Goldman Sachs backed, and they're no longer doing social impact bonds. But I know that many cities are because the problem with the social impact bond is that in cities, there are complexities. The entity that needs to make the investment, let's say, would typically be like the Parks Department, the entity that would benefit long-term from that would be the Department of Health because the cost of care of populations would be lower. Those two entities are financially disconnected in how their budgets operate. So until those things are bridged, a social impact bond doesn't work so well because it has to be the same entity.
That's one opportunity. Another is carbon markets, maybe carbon markets offer ways. But let's face it, that doesn't really exist yet. Another that I'm aware of is the EB-5 visa, which in the US is a kind of shortcut to getting on the path to citizenship through foreign investment. There have been times when the investment has been for real estate development, but partly for social outcomes. So there's a little bit of work happening in that way.
I'll give you a micro example of what I'm talking about. Van Alan, when we did our pandemic relief program, partnered with seven community-based organizations in communities where our frontline workers were dying. They didn't have the resources to put restaurant extensions out and redesign their H-VAC systems. So we partnered with them and brought around pro bono services to do that work. But we also made a commitment that every dollar we raised, 50% we would read grant directly to those community-based organizations, no questions asked, no red tape, no obligations, here is the money you do whatever you need to do. We didn't expect a return because we knew that they were going to need those funds to either implement the things we were coming up with or to build their capacity. So in the end, I think the fundamental idea that you're going to, that there's some magical way, what has to happen here is a transfer of wealth. That's really the bottom line. And I wish there were tools like social impact bonds that would connect, for example, improved population health with investment in green space, as one example. Better minds than mine, I hope, are working on what's the financial product because I think we don't have those products. We just don't have them. But if people can come up with that, I think that would be a way to say at the population scale, there can be savings and issue bonds, the way that people do now. But I really think that funders need to start thinking that to realize that there's not really a magic way to do that right now, I think.
Yeah. So, you know, if we're looking at what's missing, the one thing is, of course, the financial products and the structures of how we do that. But who would you partner up with to be more impactful? What kind of partnership would you be looking for? I am also talking about big funders, and you mentioned JP Morgan, which I think is giving practical assistance or actually co-creating a project that has a use case. What about funders who don't necessarily have coding and design capabilities, but have money? How do we work with them? Are there other ways to fill the gaps that you've seen?
I mean, I think the JP Morgan program that I described to you works well for Van Alen, because we're ready for it. Yeah. But I want to be clear, it's a very narrow thing. Like, they actually extended their application period, because they didn't have enough applicants, you have to be at a sophisticated point in your institutional development to even understand and be able to access and know what they could do for you. Right, which we're at that point now. But really, what funders should be doing is operating on trust with their organizations across the country. And let me use New York as an example. When we launched our pandemic relief program, I had already, through my previous positions, become familiar with leaders of historically disinvested communities in New York. So I understood there, they're going to know what their communities need. And I'm going to trust that, because they already have that experience. And they know they're going to tell us, and I would never say to them, like, in some ways, Mikkel, what we're doing right now is the perfect example of what should not happen. Because I've been developing expertise in this intersection between social justice and urban systems for decades, you're talking to me about it, the people who have the funds, and the people who would benefit from this conversation, neither of them are in the room right now. It's only you and I, if we're really doing this in a meaningful way, the process has to have integrity with the outcome that you're seeking to achieve. And this process you and I are engaged in right now doesn't have such integrity. If it did, you wouldn't be saying to me, I represent funders who wants to do work in cities, to combat poverty and bring lead, you know, disinvested communities to the table, we're going to give Van Alen, whatever, and you Van Alan can bring to the table these leaders, and then we're going to give each of them some funds, and we're going to co create a program based on what they tell us they need. That's how it should happen. Otherwise, it's a little bit of a dilettantism, because it's like, I, you know, and please, excuse me, but again, I've been, yeah, I've conversations like this with researchers all the time. But really, what should happen is, funders should say, we're not going to look to extract information from you for free, and then go do something else with it, we're gonna trust that: "oh, you've been having success for decades, maybe you know, something that we don't know, and we're going to support you in developing a program with your contacts". Because, you know, I, Deborah Martin at Van Alen, know certain things, but the fact is that if we were developed to do such a thing, I wouldn't do it without inviting the folks who speak authentically for the communities that we want to help. They need to be in the room, and they're not in the room right now.
Right. So, is this a core point? Of course, expanding the knowledge base is important, and I don't think anyone is against that. However, if we truly want to understand, we need to invest some money and observe the resulting impact. We can then learn from that experience.
Exactly. I mean, imagine if you're a startup, right? And you're trying to create the world's best new widget. Yeah, you're gonna prototype it. You're not gonna like, just kind of talk about
And like, Oh, really, you're not going to try to create the world's best new widget, by having a bunch of people who don't know much about the need for widgets. Talk about it, you're going to actually like to ask the folks who know what they need, you know, and that's what we're doing. So I mean, in my view, I don't really understand why I'm involved in... and I always agree to these conversations and of course, I agree with you Mikkel because I think you're very gifted, but like I don't really understand why the kind of well resourced actors in the philanthropic landscaping, and I want to say this is changing this not everyone, but continue to look for like magical answers when you really have to prototype things, you have to try things on the ground. And the folks who you want to benefit. They can't be like a passive recipient. We're not like, you know, Lady Bountiful, we have to be partners. And people have to be respected for their lived experience and the knowledge they have. I mean, the people that I collaborate with every day in New York City's historically disinvested communities are among the most resourceful, dedicated leaders I've ever encountered in my life, because they do so much with so little. And why they're not in those rooms is because they spend their everyday putting out fires. And so Van Alen exists to bring those folks to the table. That's how we work. Because, you know, many of these organizations like they don't even have development departments, because they just don't, they don't have the resources. So like, some of the things we've done, for example, we had a large funder who wanted to support a small business improvement district in a disinvested. community, they gave us funds, and we took no cut for those funds, and just pass it right through to this smaller organization, because they didn't have the resources to do the kind of administrative piece as just one example.
Yeah. Hahaha.
Yeah. Okay, this is really interesting. It also makes me think of something else. When we prototype using this approach, how do we make it last? What is the way to extend it out? One thing you mentioned is to pass it on to those who need it and trust that they know what they need and how to service those needs. How do we extend the lifespan? Is this an ongoing process? Have you seen anything where we can put longer timeframes on this? I'm also thinking about conflicts that may come up in terms of funding timeframes and other gaps that we need to address.
One of our community partners in this pandemic relief project is Yvonne Stinnett. She has been the Director of Community League of the Heights for 30-40 years, which is a powerful Community Development Corporation in Washington Heights. They have been building housing, educating kids, and creating after-school programs for decades. Yvonne is still very much in the trenches. She once said to me that the worst thing that funders can do is raise expectations and then leave us. What communities need is long-term, short-term support, long-term commitment, and capacity building over time. I think you start small, get to know what the needs are, and just keep going. But to me, a 5 or 10-year commitment is really the way to make real change. You have to bring the startup spirit to it because you don't necessarily know where you're going to be at the end of 10 years. So you have to build learning and iteration into the core of how you operate. Every year, you're having retrospectives, understanding what works and what doesn't work, and advancing. The commitment has to be to a set of values that are shared, with respect for the expertise and knowledge of leaders who live in these communities. You just have to say, "I don't live there. I don't know, but we have this network, we have these resources. We believe in justice, and we're going to collaborate and wherever that takes us. Let it take us there."
Yeah, okay. So so...
We did programs where Van Alen focused on histories around architecture, landscape architecture, and planning. However, community leaders told us, "That's great, but what we really need are marketing assets for our small businesses. Or what we really need is a workshop, like the landlord-tenant workshop, because our landlords and tenants are having problems collaborating on what to do after the pandemic." Sometimes, if you predefine the kind of support you're going to give, you're limiting yourself. You just have to say, "We're here because we believe in justice and equity. And wherever that takes us, it's going to take us, and that's okay.”
Yeah, no, this was wonderful. I really appreciate it. There's a lot of food for thought here. Thank you for your time. I will provide an update on what's happening and the progress on some of these points. Let's try to follow up on them.
Yeah, I'd love to know the outcome and like I said at the beginning, like, I'm always happy to speak with you. And I always have faith that whatever you're working on is gonna have a good outcome.
Okay. So, essentially, it's a prototype, put some, put some funds and resources of all kinds, you know, where we think they're needed, see what works and then keep keep going, when it's when it's working. In a way, yeah.
Yeah! And be open to qualitative and quantitative evaluation, if you want to have really rigorous evaluation and put some money behind, you know, I mean, evaluation is expensive.
This may seem like a tangent, but investigating the measurements and metrics used in the finance industry is crucial. The industry often relies on linear metrics, which may not accurately capture the progress of human endeavors. How can we measure progress that is not necessarily linear, and how often should we measure it? Additionally, factoring in costs can further complicate evaluations. There are various issues to consider, including alignment and funding. Are there any other tips or barriers we need to address in order to conduct a thorough evaluation?
I want to say, I don't think there's a magic answer here, Mikkel, because, you know, if you want to get the most bang for your philanthropic Buck, GiveWell already showed us that you just buy mosquito nets for malaria, right? Because that's going to save the most lives, we understand that, right? If what you want is social justice, and you want to advance the cause of you know, like improved quality of life, in disinvested communities, the outcomes may not be linear, there has to be a certain amount of human trust. Like if I say to Yvonne Stennett, who lives in Washington Heights, who has been heading a community development corporation there for like three decades, you know, if she tells me this is what we need, why wouldn't we believe her? Right? You know, and, and if the outcome is like, a few more kids get educated, a few more people have a better housing, you know, like, we should trust.. I think that the idea that every metric is quantitative is to me lazy thinking. Because complex systems aren't amenable to linear measurement. And what we're talking about here, why the richest country in the history of the planet has such a high poverty rate? It's not there's not a simple answer. But who has the answer? Are people who live there right now? They have the answer. They know, it's just that because there's not a linear way of saying, you know, or there's not a return on investment that's easily measurable. It's an easy out to say, Oh, well, there's not a good metric, so we're not investing. But I can tell you as someone who is in these communities all the time, actually, there are ways to make lies. And just because they're not easily measurable, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.
Yeah. Any ways that you feel sort of extra important to point out in this conversation? I'm sure there's many.
Well, I mean, I think it starts with listening. What we're doing right now is a good conversation to have. But honestly, I think you and I are like the middlemen here, right? Honestly, like the funder, and the folks who the funder, things need to get the benefit. They need to be in the same room. Right. And so, I was advising, I don't really know who you're, who's engaged you to do this work, but if I were advising them, I would say you should convene folks who are actually those who speak authentically, to the needs of communities that you want to support, don't ask them to do it for free, because they need data, meaning they don't have time for that. Support their organizations and support their time and come to it with a promise that you're going to co-create something, because I guarantee that they'll have ideas about careers.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting what you're saying about support the organization, support their time, and you know, about the co creation, because these things, actually, what I'm hearing is they come together, in a way quite nicely, right. I mean, they're all time consuming. You know, everybody wants to co create, sometimes we have this idea that, if we're all coming to the table and co creating, you know, that's actually equal time for everybody, but it's not, I mean, some people are more busy and more strained and others so that's just not the reality. So in a way, you know, you know, at a very kind of practical level in compensating people for their, for their co creation, even if it's for their own benefit. You know, let's say, let's just say,
And I wouldn't be surprised if none of these leaders would take it for their own, they would want the outcome to be something that benefited their communities. I know they were.
Yeah, yeah. Of course. Okay, I don't know if I'm being too leading here, but I'm ideating. It also says a lot about diversity and inclusion of the people you can involve. If you want diversity and inclusion in your process, you need to ensure that everyone can participate, and it's not just about bus fare or paying for their time. It's about making it worth their while now and in the future. Okay, so…
It's about respect for experience. That's not about bus fare. It's about I've been doing this for decades, all the leaders that I work with have been doing it for decades, we know what we need. It's about respect for experience, I don't tell other people how to run their business. And actually, it's tiresome to have, you know, funders to tell you how to run your business. It's tiresome, because, like, you know, why would others understand better how to do the work? They don't, they're just looking for... and you know, and frequently, the way programs are framed, like, you know, innovation prizes, and things like that. They ignore work, good work that's already going on. Because then the funder can say, like, I funded this thing, this cool innovation. So it's not really about the recipient of the idea. It's really about the funder, being able to say like, you know, my brilliance led to solving the world's problems. And like, the world is going on, and people are trying to solve problems every single day. Let's look at the folks who've been doing it for decades, maybe. And, like, respect the fact that maybe they know something.
Yeah, it's interesting. Actually, that point has been on the back of my mind since the beginning of this conversation. It's about money and the innovation prize credit. Essentially, there's money, and there's also the recognition of having funded something or having your name on something. I'm not sure what the question is here, but I guess it's something like: how can we solve this? How can we help funders put their ego aside? Are there ways to park the logo for a little bit?
I mean, I think there are funders who are working in different ways. I mean, look at McKenzie Bezos, right? I mean, what did she do? She does research. The organizations who received her funds, and I know some folks, they had no idea that that was going to happen. They did some research, they decided that her people did research and then they just gave grants to organizations and said: "We trust you to do good work. You have already been doing good work". And that's what they did.
Yeah, and what criteria should we consider in a situation like that? I know there's no magic answer, but having a track record of success is certainly one thing to look for. However, some organizations may be new or lack materials to demonstrate their track record. Are there any other useful criteria we can consider? Or...
You know Mikkel, I mean, there could be a book written about that, right?
Yeah, I'm sure, yeah
It would depend. And the answer really has to do with values. What do you value? What are you trying to do in the world? What is the problem you're trying to solve? How much money do I have? You know, I mean, it? Look, I could write a book about that. But the bottom line is, it starts with the values. Do you want to feel good about yourself? Or do you want to help someone else? Let's start with that. You know, and you could probably do both. But it just depends on what that looks like. You know, the criteria, it could be there quantitative quality, you know, look at the 990, look at the leadership, look at the board, look at the diversity, you know, talk to people. But like you said, there's new organizations, it really starts with what do you have and what do you want to see happen in the world? And then that's how you develop your criteria. So it really has to start with the values?
Yeah, it's really interesting. So basically, when we talk about inclusion and bringing our communities into the decision-making process of how we fund, it's not a dimensional image of everybody sitting around a giant table and having a great discussion. Rather, it's happening much more out in the communities themselves. It's about measuring, observing, and catching the signals of those communities, and then increasing our efforts as we go, because perhaps the world is too complex to predict everything. Is that something you agree with?
Yeah, it presicely is! It's that these top down programs invented by people who aren't living the lives that they want to affect are, to me, fundamentally flawed in their conception. What it needs to be is, think about what your values are, and then support, listen to the people who are, who are who you want to benefit from your support and your generosity, and then help them to achieve what they want to achieve. That's the answer. I really believe that and I've seen it with our, you know, look, we're tiny, right? Like we're a tiny nonprofit. But to the extent that we've been working that way, every single leader that we've worked with, has said, this is the kind of support we need. This is the way that we want to work. I could...come together in a room right now and they would all tell you that. So, you know, I think it working with residents in general can be tricky, so that's why at Van Alen we focus on community based organizations, that tend to be the ones who sort of carry the torch across time within communities, and who really can speak authentically to what the needs and vision for the communities are.