Our Framework

Supportive Environments for Effectiveness

The Big Idea

Our context, or environments, can either help or hurt our ability to be our best selves and reach our goals.

Here’s what we mean:

  • A loud work space may prevent deep work

  • A confusing digital website may drive away would-be volunteers

  • Employees may feel unmotivated or consider moving on if their organization has a cultural environment where leaders don't seem to consider their ideas or acknowledge their contributions

This is an extraordinary idea! Because, it means that we can modify our environments to better support us.

That’s the driving idea behind our research-based framework:

(SEE) Supportive Environments for Effectiveness

Three Main Ideas

SEE helps us identify when our context isn’t supporting our cognitive and social-emotional needs. For instance, the need to understand how to do the work at hand; the need for mental clarity and focus to do the work; and the need to make a meaningful impact.

These examples each represent one of the three categories of cognitive informational needs that make up the framework: Understanding, Bandwidth, and Meaningful Engagement.

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The Role of Supportive Environments
The Role of Supportive Environments

We define “environment” to include not only physical settings, like the work space, but also social and virtual settings. Environments encompass the situations and circumstances where we interact with basic information; seeking it, making sense of it, and sharing it. When environments support people’s ability to interact with information, they feel less overwhelmed, and more motivated to collaborate, communicate, and contribute ideas.

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Organizational Context
Organizational Context

We recognize that nonprofits find themselves in multiple different contexts, or environments, that don’t always support their needs. They might be facing particular challenges, or have aspirations they are trying to build toward, such as refining their strategic plan.

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People Scale
People Scale

People have a variety of ways of navigating environments. For any environment, three key ways include forming an understanding through exploration, meaningfully participating in an effort to make a difference, and having the resources and mental clarity to feel competent when engaging with the information that makes up the environment.

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Small Experiments
Small Experiments

SEE encourages taking small steps, each an experiment, so that people, either individually or collectively, can adapt as they move forward. reDirect’s approach guides nonprofits as they reflect on where they’re at, what small actions they can take, and how they’ll gauge the impact of those actions.

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Supportive Environments for Effectiveness (SEE)
Supportive Environments for Effectiveness (SEE)

When personnel build a SEE mindset, they work together to develop more supportive environments that meet the demands of the organization and its mission. SEE is a tool to learn from successes and failures to help nonprofits rethink the status quo.

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SEE isn’t just a theory

It’s a practical toolset that helps organizations understand how they can better support their people.

 
two women working together at a table and smiling
 

SEE helps us understand and communicate.

SEE gives us a language for identifying the ways our environment supports or depletes us. The three domains of SEE can help clarify why someone is feeling confused, frustrated, or unmotivated and what’s required to feel more clear-headed, calm, and inspired.

SEE supports greater awareness and well-being.

It’s a fact that we will fatigue throughout the day, no matter how well-rested, interested, or engaged we are. SEE honors our human limitations, giving us evidence-based guidance about how to renew our energy, creativity, and perspective.

 
young Black women doing a yoga pose
two women walking on a sidewalk
 
 
 

SEE shows us the beauty of small experiments.

Few habits or processes are changed overnight. The SEE framework often reveals simple solutions hidden in plain sight—supporting change that’s actually achievable. SEE encourages taking small steps, each an experiment, so there’s room to adapt as you address challenges now, and in the future.