SENTIDO
To reach young Latinx in meaningful and contextual ways, the United Methodist Church supported this innovative initiative to understand their needs and values.
Sentido was the first project of its kind to explore the spiritual lives of Latinx young adults in the United States by utilizing Human-Centered Design and qualitative development methodologies.
To respect the intellectual property of Discipleship Ministries, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. The information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of any of the organizations involved in the the project.
Organizations involved
The United Methodist Church is a very large multi-national institution with specialized agencies. As a result, support from the agencies included in the project was handled individually. We also included Kumu Thrive, an innovation organization from the Bay Area, in the project.
The following organizations were involved in the project:
The collaborative effort of these organizations made it possible for this project to take place.
team
I created and led a cross-functional team consisting of:
- Manuel Maqueda, design thinking expert
- Rev. Dr. Naomi Annandale, researcher
- Carla Fox, communications strategist
- Alma Perez, cultural context contributor
- Sara Hamdorff, graphic designer
Our team intentionally modeled inclusiveness and collaboration. It was made up of people with different perspectives and backgrounds, including diversity in age, gender, and religious affiliation.
My role
I led the Sentido research project since the outset in January 2016 and until the completion of the Research Phase on March 2019.
leadership
I led the research team and presented the proposal and later the work to gain buy-in from partners and organization leaders throughout the project lifecycle.
strategy & vision
I created frameworks, progress reports and experiences to share project vision and strategies. This helped to gain alignment and support for project.
resource development and allocation
II wrote grant request, developed project logic and forecasting documentation, and advocated for project funding. I oversaw budget allocation, reconciliation and reporting.
planning & scope definition
I defined project goals with partner organization leaders. I created project design, monitoring and evaluation protocols to define goal, objectives, deliverables, and costs.
stakeholder & public relations
As point of contact, I created and maintained relations with partner organizations and stakeholders. These included universities, social justice groups, and others.
oversight, coordination & evaluation
As the Project Manager, I kept coordinated research trips, surveys, presentations, etc. I also managed timelines, deliverables and goal tracking.
design execution
I executed preliminary research, primary and secondary research, and synthesis. I also contributed to our branding and communications strategy.
THE CHALLENGE
reaching a largely unexplored audience
For decades, the United Methodist Church has devised targeted strategies to increase their Latinx audience and membership but with very limited success.
Our challenge was to provide a deeper understanding of Latinx young adults, so that strategies could be tailor-made to fit their needs.
To do this, we would find transferable principles about the spiritual needs and values of Latinx young adults living in the U.S. who were 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants.
Our findings would be shared with church leaders throughout the country. With this knowledge, we hoped that the leaders would create contextual initiatives to fit the needs of their audience.
A note on transferable principles
It was clear from the beginning that the project could not and would not yield a ‘failsafe formula’ for reaching Latinx young adults. This would have been unethical and unlikely since the diversity amongst the target audience throughout the U.S. is very large. Instead, we focused on identifying principles that were present in all or most areas we visited.
the context
a long-term effort
The United Methodist Church was at a loss about how to reach young Latinx in the U.S. Even though campaigns and targeted strategies had been deployed over the years, success in reaching them was spotty with no real understanding about why they had succeeded while others hadn’t.
The United Methodist Church has spent a lot of time and effort attempting to become more ethnically diverse. However, after many years of effort the numbers have remained largely unchanged.
Current focus
The majority of initiatives to reach Latinx communities focused on 1st generation immigrants, people who had emigrated from Latin American countries and whose main language was Spanish.
In contrast, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants had been born in the United States and spoke English. Because of this, many population studies and surveys tended to either combine them with first generation immigrants or with the general U.S. population.
This led to lack of research about how they were similar and different from other Latinx communities. As a result, initiatives to reach this audience were assumed to be the same as those for 1st generation Latinx.
Sentido comes along
After identifying the denominational need to understand the needs of 2nd and 3rd generation Latinx and the lack of relevant data about them, Sentido came about. This initiative would focus on understanding the target audience and developing solutions based on those needs utilizing the Human-Centered Design approach.
framing the problem
defining the question
Even though this project was being funded by the church, we wanted to make sure that the research would not be misled to the detriment of the user.
We spent a long time operationalizing the research question so that we were aware of our assumptions and that we were putting the needs of the user front and center.
operationalization
The ‘spiritual’ part of the question was difficult to define because spirituality can mean very different things to everyone. We chose to use ‘meaning’ instead of ‘spiritual’ because it is a term that does not seem to be intertwined with religion, a lesson we learned during our preliminary research.
As a result, we decided to focus on the non-material needs of Latinx young adults. Per our definition, ‘non-material’ needs referred to those intangible, but still important aspects of a person’s life.
Because of non-material needs encompassed a large variety of things, we focused on three general categories:
- Personal growth – individuals needs related to self-realization
- Relational – needs related to their relationships with others, whether they are family, friends, professional, etc.
- Social – needs that go beyond their personal gain, involving others, such as movements or causes
the approach
getting creative
The United Methodist Church is a non-profit focused on being good stewards of the funding they receive. It was important for stakeholders to understand and measure the impact of this project. As a result, I combined Human-Centered Design and Project Design, Monitoring & Evaluation (DM&E).
Human-Centered design
The approach provides a way to remain focused on the needs of the user, while also providing a process for developing solutions to satisfy their needs.
Design, Monitoring & evaluation (DM&E)
This development and evaluation approach provides a way to assess the results of the interventions throughout the implementation of a project.
combining methodologies
- Human-Centered Design would provide the process for carrying out the project
- Project Design, Monitoring & Evaluation would provide a way to measure impact qualitatively.
design rationale
To make the most out of the research and to satisfy the expectations of stakeholders, we split the project in two parts:
- Part of the project would be spent conducting the appreciative inquiry
- The other part would be spent conducting user research with target users
We would take advantage of any events that we wanted to attend as part of the research and tag the appreciative inquiry on to the itinerary and viceversa. This way, we could carry out both and maximize our efforts and funding.
The research would also be divided into 3 sub-phases:
- First subphase – exploratory and broad
- Second subphase – more focused in quality and audience
- Third subphase – evaluative
The purpose of the sub-phases is to make sure that we are evaluating our progress throughout the research, as well as validating or revising our findings.
the audience
The Latinx population in the U.S. is made up of over 55 million people. Of them, over 13 million are 18-35 years old.
The project focuses on studying those Latinx young adults that are young adults and born in the U.S. and are religiously unaffiliated.
human-centered design
phase one: inspiration
During Phase One of this project, we would tackle research in two ways:
Appreciative Inquiry as a way to evaluate current offerings and determine what works
Needfinding as the process to identify needs of the Latinx young adults
1. appreciative inquiry
To reveal the approaches that were effectively reaching Latinx young adults in existing spaces, we conducted the following:
literature
- Review existing research about religious values and Latinx
- Current events about Latinx young adults
Content analysis
- Study reports and documents about Latinx young adults in the church
- Review previous approaches to understand relationships, assumptions, and decision processes.
demographic data
- Review information from Pew Research Center, Rand Corporation, Institute for Religious Research, Barna, etc.
- Evaluate membership and population trends in church attendance
Interviews
- Latinx young adults who are members (individual and group)
- Church leaders with growing numbers of Latinx young adults
- Experts on Latinx and young adults
immersion
- Visit churches or spaces with Latinx young adult ministries
- Attend UMC events for Latinx young adults
surveys
- Data about membership from pastors
- Data from Latinx young adults
2. formative research
To identify the non-material needs of Latinx young adults, find patterns and gather insights, we performed the following:
LIterature
- Review existing research about Latinx young adults’ values, needs, priorities, etc.
- Current events about Latinx young adults in the U.S.
content analysis
- Review reports and documents about Latinx young adults
demographic data
- Review available demographic data about Latinx young adults
- Evaluate population survey results
Interviews
- Latinx young adults who are not religiously affiliated
- Community organizers working with Latinx young adults
- Experts on Latinx and young adults
immersion
- Visit universities, community events, professional events, etc., that attract Latinx young adults
- Visit social enterprises and non-profits for Latinx young adult communities
surveys
- Data about religious beliefs and spirituality
- Data from Latinx young adults
the synthesis
Indentifying the user
To synthesize everything we learned through Phase 1, we spent 3 days processing our notes, interviews, observations, pictures, and other artifacts.
Altogether, we participated or visited the following:
- 17 states and 27 cities
- 6 professional events
- 13 universities
- 15 community-focused organizations
- 4 art/music events
- 4 meditation events or classes
- 6 local club chapters
- 3 business development centers
- 12 expert interviews
- 127 group or individual interviews
The events or places we visited where chosen using the following criteria:
- Is there a large Latinx population attending? Or, is it for Latinx?
- What is the country of heritage of attendees?
- Are they religiously unaffiliated?
We also focused on having variety regarding:
- Urban and rural settings
- Level of education
- Generation make-up (2nd and 3rd)
- Level of wealth
We wanted to make sure that we were including a large variety of Latinx individuals, because even though HCD is not meant to be statistically reliable, we still wanted to make sure that we included people from various backgrounds, including:
Themes and Principles
With the data we gathered throughout our research, we were able to identify themes and principles that were repeatedly mentioned or observed. We identified them during both the appreciative inquiry and the formative research.
The implication of our findings seem to go well beyond their spiritual lives and to permeate other important areas. Some recommendations for future research were provided as part of the report that was presented.
Personas
To make sense of the user research in a way that could be communicated to stakeholders and a wider audience, we created 7 personas.
- 3 personas inside the church, including the target audience and those who try to reach them
- 4 personas outside the church who are the target audience
Furthermore, we also created empathy maps for each persona to gain deeper insight into who the audience is. We did this utilizing the following:
For confidentiality reasons, I have omitted the actual personas, themes and principles identified through the research.
phase one results
sharing our findings
Once the project was completed, I put together an event to share our findings with Latinx young adults and church leaders.
During the event, the methodology, findings and evidence was shared with the leaders.
Upon completion of the event, we compiled all the data gathered and shared it with relevant parties.
the handoff
the final report
To close out the research phase, or Phase 1, I created a report of the findings and shared it with leadership and stakeholders.
human-centered design
phase 2 & 3: recommendations
The Inspiration, or research, Phase sought to understand the needs and values of Latinx young adults. The following are recommendations for Phases 2 (Ideation) and 3 (Implementation):
- Maintain geographical diversity of users
- Emphasis on ideation and testing, not perfection
- Solutions evolve over time, needs remain stable
KEY TAKEAWAYS
New audiences hide in plain sight
Although much behavioral and attitudinal research had been done on Latinx, very little had been done on 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants, who tend to fall on a grey zone. This gave us the opportunity to conduct much needed research to better understand them.
cross-functional teams work
Creating a diverse team provided us many more perspectives and unearthed many nuances that we might have missed. It strengthened the project overall and made us more mindful of our work.
UP NEXT
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