Art DelaCruz, our COO uses the concept of investment a lot around the office. So much so that it has begun to sink in. The Open Initiative is a perfect example of an investment at Team Rubicon. Not only an investment in today but an investment hopefully well beyond the here and now.
What started nearly a year ago was developed in response to Hurricane Harvey but was much more a declaration with a long view. A declaration that tied cultural principles of accountability and innovation to a moment that said we can do more today and use it as an investment for tomorrow. Perhaps many tomorrows.
Why? Everyone is vying for attention. Everyone is framing themselves as unique. In that way, Team Rubicon is no different. What is different are the ingredients that come together to form Team Rubicon. A membership of veterans and first responders with inherent skills to be repurposed in the face of disasters to improve outcomes for survivors and as a result regain a sense of community, purpose, and identity. An organization that was born from a willingness to question the status quo. An organization that was born with technology. An organization that strives to be a learning organization and willing to admit if we come up short.
All of these reasons and many more are why the Open Initiative is an investment in the future. It establishes a marker today of what we’re putting on the table as more people look to invest in Team Rubicon and as disaster increase, more people will be in need of our assistance.
Looking to what’s next. As you may have seen, we’ve built a more modular approach to v3. One way this will play out is an ability to show our response to large disasters in near real time. In one example, you can now watch the progress of our two Rebuild operations as they continue in Puerto Rico and Texas.
Next up is a section currently in development and includes the placeholder “Coming soon.” What we’re working on here is the ability to show at a high-level how much it costs to scale up a response or rebuild operation, the investments from our donors that enable our efforts and the value generated. V2 of the Open Initiative included a prototype of this concept. We’re currently working on building the templates for these three data types (scale up cost, donor investment, and value generated) for response and rebuild operations.
To wrap this note up, we are moving ahead, looking to the future and continuing to invest in practices that we believe will pay dividends in the years to come.
