How We Got Here
It started as “a guy walked into a bar” story. Debra Hansen was “doing research” at a local watering hole, when she overheard a business owner remark that a story about him in the local newspaper brought him several new customers. Debra knew that this regular column featuring local businesses was added as a result of the community leadership program she led, but the business owner didn’t have any idea the chain of events that led to the story and increasing his bottom line began with Horizons, an 18 month program that trained community volunteers to become change agents in their communities….. Debra coined the term, Ripple Effects Mapping…
Unbeknownst to Debra, a University of Idaho Extension Specialist, Lorie Higgins, was also using mind mapping to evaluate the Horizons program in Idaho communities. Lorie’s approach was somewhat different than Debra’s but the ultimate goal of categorizing impacts according to the Community Capitals Framework was the same.
In an effort to create a forum for all Horizons delivery organizations to share what they learned from research on the impacts of Horizons, Lorie put out a call for a special session at a professional conference. That’s when Lorie and Debra discovered they were on similar paths. In order to aggregate impacts across states, Lorie adopted Debra’s “Ripple Effects Mapping” approach and the rest is history…
REM was created to capture short, medium and long term impacts of complex and evolving development work in rural communities
REM: The Movement
National interest in Ripple Mapping was immediate. A webinar on REM sparked the interest of an Evaluation Specialist at University of Minnesota. Scott Chazdon adapted the process to suit his needs, adding a theming component to the process that helps participants categorize their activities.
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