Method To The Madness

There’s A Method To The Madness: Unpacking the REDI Scorecard Methodology

In designing the REDI Scorecard, we intentionally combined a variety of measurement practices and approaches to ensure that the most marginalized experiences and perspectives had a platform for meaningful input.

This assessment was no small feat; it took 12 months to complete from start to finish!  Here’s a breakdown of what we did and how we did it:

STEP 1: Identify Trends

We started by developing a comprehensive data collection plan and mapped out the primary channels from which we would solicit ecosystem stakeholder input.

The driving question guiding this first phase of the process was: what are the current trends that impact REDI experiences?

As we adapted this assessment framework to our local ecosystem, our primary objective was to understand the current state of the ecosystem through preliminary research of secondary and primary sources.  

STEP 2:  Listen

Next, we conducted a listening tour over a four (4) month period, including a series of deep dive 1-on-1 interviews and four (4) virtual community-wide town hall convenings.  

Here, our main inquiry was:  What are our ecosystem's REDI gaps, priorities and assets?

In order to answer this question, we set a goal of executing a qualitative data collection effort to better under a diversity of experiences in the local ecosystem from a broad group of stakeholders.

STEP 3:  Ask

Through a collaboration with Forward Cities, we adapted their E3 Scorecard, an assessment tool that measures the health and equity of an entrepreneurial ecosystem to align with the survey component of the REDI Scorecard model as a 64 inquiry point questionnaire. Over a three (3) month period, we collected responses from over 1000 responses from members of the local tech and innovation community.

The primary query we sought to answer was: what are our ecosystem's REDI gaps, priorities and assets?

Similar to the prior phase, we needed to deepen our understanding of diverse stakeholder experiences through quantitative data collection. To learn more about the demographic breakdown of the participants who contributed to the multi-stage data collection, visit our Demographics overview

STEP 4:  Analyze

After several months of data collection, we analyzed all quantitative and qualitative information gathered to distill trends, main findings and potential solutions to the identified gaps.  Quantitative respondent data were analyzed through STATA, utilizing statistical tests like ANOVA, Chi Square and others to understand the differences between distinct subgroups and stratifications.

We recognized that quite often assessments of this nature result in an overly burdensome amount of data, so we asked ourselves: how might we create a data set to benchmark our ecosystem's level of REDI? Our objective was to balance the process of extrapolating useful and practical insights with analyzing all the data collected using a defensible approach and accepted research methods.
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STEP 5:  Share

Instead of consolidating our findings into a static academic report, we developed a dynamic website, storytelling content, and social media campaign to make the results more accessible and dynamic for multiple stakeholder groups.

We asked ourselves: how might we share the REDI Scorecard results to engage diverse audiences locally and nationally?

That’s why we opted to develop dynamic content to share the results of the assessment, with the goal of creating tools and other user centric resources to add value.

‍It is important to mention that the application of the REDI Scorecard assessment framework may differ from ecosystem to ecosystem.  And, most importantly, it should always remain a collective effort among a variety of stakeholders.  In South Florida, over 80 partner organizations and leaders, including local elected officials, investors, startup founders, support organizations and more, contributed to the comprehensive data collection process.  Our results and findings would not be possible without true collaboration