The problem you name is the solution you build

Nonprofits tackle big problems — but often without naming the root cause that actually drives their work. In this episode, Hillary Frances breaks down how clarifying your problem statement can transform your strategy, sharpen your identity, and make your interventions more potent.

Featuring Josh Jones, CEO of Neighborhood in Virginia, who has spent years reshaping his beliefs about poverty from a personal failure to systemic inequity. Josh and Hillary discuss what workforce development programming would look like if we believed it was caused by systemic forces.

This episode gives you a formula to write a problem statement that identifies the real forces at play and sets you up for a unique and specific solution.

Mentioned: Josh’s article published in the Virginian Pilot on “Lifting our neighbors up requires systematic change,” Feb 8, 2025.

Guest: Josh Jones is the CEO of Neighborhood in Chesapeake, Virginia, where he leads a bold effort to address poverty not as a personal failure but as the predictable result of structural inequities. Under his leadership since 2018, Neighborhood has evolved from an employment-focused startup to a community organization tackling the root causes of economic instability through workforce development, advocacy, and systems change.

A thoughtful and deeply reflective leader, Josh is known for challenging common myths about poverty and for inviting his team—and his community—to interrogate the narratives that shape opportunity. His work centers on expanding economic mobility, strengthening families, and creating environments where every person has a fair shot at financial stability and thriving.

Transcript

My name is Hillary Frances, and one of the things I've been thinking about is how important it is to clearly articulate the problem our organization is solving. I think that the way an organization describes the problem they're solving says a lot about what they believe, and that our beliefs about why the problem exists should be made public. A problem statement is your definition of the need for your organization. This is different from the several paragraphs we write for grants that include statistics of how bad things are, like the homelessness stats in our area, or the number of acres burned in the last wildfire. That's all helpful context, but it's not the same as an assessment of the root cause of a problem and the precise segment of that problem. We believe we can change. This is what I'm calling a problem statement. 

You are listening to tailwinds ideas, fueling nonprofit innovators and social entrepreneurs. Tailwinds is a project that brings momentum to the leaders tackling the world's most impossible problems. Today's episode, how we distill the problem we're solving to its root cause so that we can create better solutions. I'm going to argue that your beliefs about the root cause of the problem your organization is solving informs your intervention, and the most effective interventions are specific. 

Today's episode has three parts. Part one, I will work to convince you that we need to include our beliefs about the problems we are solving in our external messaging. This sets up your specialization as an organization. Part two, we hear from a nonprofit leader in Chesapeake, Virginia who has redesigned his approach to workforce development. When he got clear on why unemployment exists in his community part three, the formula for a great problem statement. 

So part one, our beliefs about the problem need to be included in our messaging. Here's a great problem statement. Institutional racism has created generational social and economic disparities for black communities, which prevent whole person health. As a result, African American and black communities lack equitable, culturally responsive resources that support them in overcoming the root causes of health problems. This statement evolved from the first draft, which read. Black communities experience health disparities. It's important to clarify the root cause of the problem because it sets you up to build a very specialized intervention through the exercise of refining their problem statement, this organization realized that working on systemic racism in healthcare was core to their work. They began to dedicate new attention to it and even set out a goal about policy work. I sometimes think of social sector interventions like medicine. Many times entrepreneurs are compelled by a social problem, but then they design Tylenol in a new bottle. They do this because they haven't decided what exactly is causing the pain. 

I have Crohn's disease, and thankfully there's a medicine I get every eight weeks that targets the white blood cells in my intestine by adhering to a specific protein that I can't pronounce. It then leaves everything else alone. This is a targeted intervention that has a high potency. And I'm very thankful for it. I don't think very many nonprofits and social sector solutions are designed with this type of specificity. Why? Because the problems we are solving are so unruly. We're hesitant to just hone in on one part for fear that the other compelling parts of the problem will go unattended to. So if we're afraid of honing in too much. What if we worked on identifying a very nuanced understanding of the root cause of the problem we're solving and a correlated specific methodology instead of a specific program, like you might say, that Homeboy Industries, which offers a very diverse set of programming to formerly involved gang members, has figured this out. Their approach across all of their programs, from workforce development, to education, to personal development, housing, trauma therapy, all of it. Their approach is very specialized in the field of reintegration. They're defining the problem of gangs as a lethal absence of hope derived from socioeconomic systems that say some lives matter more than others. And so their methodology is to eliminate the US and them to eliminate the fact that some lives matter more than others. You could say they're specialists in reminding people. We belong to each other. They do this across all their varied programs. Our political, social, psychologic, spiritual perspectives inform what we believe about the problem our organization is solving. 

Let's see how this works in some examples, let's say the problem we're setting out to solve is that resettled refugees struggle to retain employment. We might believe that is due to the refugees psychological trauma, or we might believe that is due to low quality jobs. Our belief about the root cause of the problem will generate a totally different solution. If we think it's due to psychological trauma, we'll create a mental health intervention. If we believe it's due to low quality jobs, we'll work on the job market. Next example. Girls in Pakistan do not have equal access to education. If we believe this is due to a deeply embedded patriarchy, we might run campaigns that work to reverse patriarchal beliefs. If we believe this problem is due to the economic demands on children, we might work on employment opportunities for mothers so that children can go to school. So again, your approach to the problem defines your venture's identity, specialization and differentiators. When we leave our beliefs unexplored, we will likely be offering a generic solution, like a less potent dose of medicine than what we could be offering. 

Next, I'm going to play parts of my conversation with Josh Jones, executive Director of Neighborhood, an economic mobility organization in Chesapeake, Virginia. I want you to hear from Josh because he has worked very hard on his problem statement over the years. Not wordsmithing it, but interrogating his beliefs about the problem. His organization is actually set up to tackle I, and he lets us into his thought process about why the people he serves face economic mobility barriers in the first place. Is it a result of their choices? Or is it something else? He also gives us an entirely new framework for workforce development programming that is less about teaching people job readiness and more about influencing the hiring practices of employers. I want you to pay attention to how nuanced Josh gets with his questions about why people experience poverty and unemployment in the first place. During these parts, you might be tempted to tune out because you think he's splitting hairs, but the leaders I've met who are actually solving big problems are obsessed with the problem. And what you won't hear is that Josh's obsession with the problem is really paying off neighborhood is having its best year yet, both in terms of program outcomes as well as revenue growth. And I actually think this has a lot to do with the team's clarity on the problem they're working to solve and this specific intervention it has required them to develop. I'm really eager for you to hear from Josh.

So Josh, I wanna talk about where you are in the country. So, Chesapeake, Virginia. I've never been to Virginia and I Googled Chesapeake and the first thing that came up were pictures of the great dismal swamp.

Right.

Uh, and then nearby Mount Trashmore Park, what is going on where you live?

That's a great question. Uh, Chesapeake, Virginia is. One of the seven cities that make up a region around us called Hampton Roads. Uh, there's seven cities and Chesapeake is actually one of the largest cities in that region. We, I think there's roughly about 250,000 people here in our city, but the whole region as a whole is home to, you know, roughly about 1.8 million people. So it's a big, diverse, really unique part of the country. That most people only know about because of our military bases here in Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Um, but yes, you are right When you Google Chesapeake, the great dismal swamp comes up immediately and uh, that name does it no favors, I'll tell you that. But it, but it isn't. It's actually an incredibly beautiful historic place. Um, it's one of the largest, like remaining swamps on the East coast. You know, it's a, it's a refugee for all kinds of wildlife. It actually has like a really strong cultural history. Uh, it was a hiding place and a passageway for people escaping poverty. It carries a lot of deep stories from our past. Um, but Mount Trashmore, you know, hilariously is like the best way to describe that one. It's literally a former landfill that the city transformed into, like a huge public park. And, um, yeah, you can, uh, go climb the big mountain there of, uh, trash. That's been all covered up. It's actually quite beautiful. The city's done a really great job with it.

So Josh, I really wanted to talk to you about this topic of problem statements. You specifically have done a lot of self excavating work, relentlessly, I should say, on the problem of poverty. You and your co-founder and the article you wrote in which you argue that poverty isn't. A personal failure, it's systemic, really stays with me the way that you thought through this. Breaking the myths that blame individuals and tackling the barriers holding communities back are the only ways to create real opportunities for change. You say, um, so I think a lot of us think we agree with you. That poverty isn't a personal failure, no problem. Um, but maybe could you give us some examples of what you would think secretly in your head if you believed that poverty is a personal failure? I.

Yeah, great question. I mean, I'll start by saying this, that I think this is one of the most nuanced problems we've ever tried to untangle. I think I. Unless you truly understand the real problem, you're gonna build solutions that look good, feel good, maybe can raise a lot of money, and actually still does absolutely nothing to change the actual conditions that people are facing. And I think that's the bold truth. And so for us as an organization, changing the narrative is the first like nuanced problem any of us have to solve. And if we don't confront the stories that we've inherited. And interrogate whether they're true. We're gonna spend our whole lives fixing the wrong thing. And so, you know, for me, if, you know, I can share briefly, you know, this was certainly true for me. You know, I grew up in a white middle class family, um, in the auto industry. And my dad retired from General Motors. You know, we weren't wealthy, but we had resources. If we had stability as a family, we had margin. And I think like most parents, mine wanted to protect us from hardship. I think the unintended consequence was that I grew up too far away from poverty to kind of see the truth for myself. Does that make sense?

So what were some of the thoughts that may have occurred to you earlier on in your life about why someone was experiencing poverty?

Sure. I don't ever remember that being a narrative that was like a part of our family. But I would just say in general, the culture. From which I grew up and my distance away from poverty, a lot of those narratives around people experiencing poverty of people are lazy, people don't wanna work, and the list goes on and on. Those became very much the narrative by which I grew up believing to be true about marginalized communities. And I would say that those narratives turned out to be the furthest thing from the truth. When my wife and I began living and working alongside low income communities, everything shifted for us. Suddenly the stories that I had been hearing about, about laziness, like we said, are bad choices. Um, in fact, it was actually stories now about resiliency and survival and about how many barriers were stacked between people, instability. And you know, you referenced that article that I wrote. You know, the couple that I mentioned in that article who survived by rolling themselves up in, in this discarded carpet at night. I think it's just another perfect example. They were both working as hard as they possibly could, and yet the system surrounding them offered zero margin for error.

Mm-hmm. You know, one thing that is still a little ambiguous in our conversation, I think is when we talk about the systems that keep people locked out, it's a little bit philosophical. So I'm wondering if you would be able to think of an example of what that looks like in your. Community.

The house directly next door to me is a rental property owned by a landlord who knowingly exploits the desperation of the tenants that live there. My neighbors and this new family that recently moved in pays over $3,000 in rent, which for our, our area, I mean, is just astronomical. The house has dangerous electrical issues, no AC or heat, raw sewage that leaks onto the sidewalk where all of our kids are playing. And the mother recently said to me in tears, you know, we have nowhere else to go. I can't even afford a lawyer to like challenge this. You know, I, I've spent almost two decades living in this neighborhood and I've seen stories like that. Play out over and over and over again, where again, the systems themselves create these conditions on the ground for marginalized communities that I think most people would have no idea really exists. And even if they do know it exists, would drive by, look at that house and blame my neighbors for the condition of that property. And so again, my neighbor is not the problem, the structural. Uh, systems around rent and what housing is even available in our, in our region. And the list goes on and on is just another, those are other examples to show these systems are broken and have to be challenged. And so their story wasn't about personal failure in any way. It's a window into systemic failure.

As you and I have like talked about many times, I think that's why our co-founding team was like such a powerful combination early on. You know, my wife and I brought like years of like lived experience on the ground and our other co-founders were bringing years of deep study academic understanding of the systems and policies that create these conditions. And so together we. Spent an enormous amount of time refining our problem statement before we ever built a solution. Once we were really able to like flush that out, we decided to build something bold and I would say unreasonable, uh, from there.

I was so impressed by how eager you were to have that conversation however many years ago that was. I think a lot of entrepreneurs recognize that, sure, we need a problem statement, and it's usually like the paragraph that you use when you're applying for grants, where you have statistics about. Poverty in your zip code and statistics about job availability and it's, and it's just more descriptive of the problem, I think what we're talking about today is the way that a founder's beliefs about the reason the problem exists need to be in that statement because your beliefs are going to dictate your. Solution. So I think we often let that part be invisible. Our beliefs don't matter. We don't need to say why we think poverty exists. We just need to say it exists.

I wholeheartedly agree. I mean, I would say I would encourage anyone listening. Who wants to tackle a big problem to start there? I mean, do the internal work before you try to fix something external? Uh, I would, my challenge would be like, challenge the assumptions, question the narratives. Um, because the story you believe is going to determine the solution that you build.

Yeah, so let's play that out a little. I too. Have had beliefs that poverty is a result of people making bad decisions, poor or mistakes, unfortunately, and I have experienced poverty efforts that match that So, for example, a workforce development program. The, the program is designed with this invisible belief that the reason that happened is 'cause those people made poor decisions.

Right.

And so what, in your experience, what would a workforce development program look like if you believed that? If you believed that people were unemployed because of poor decisions they made?

Yeah. I think, uh, from my experience, a lot of workforce development programs. Are built on this assumption that people just need skills or motivation, and if you can just fix the individual, these problems are gonna go away. But if you believe, if you actually believe that poverty is systemic, then that entire framework is way too small and, and it ends up treating people as the problem instead of treating the barriers as the problem.

So then where do you think the role of mentoring fits into this? Because. I see a lot of workforce programs that have a mentoring component in that they want to help people develop, I wanna call them like middle class skills. Like they, they, they match somebody with a, successful white person to hopefully help them learn behaviors that will make them more employable, and that mirrors a belief that the person is unemployed because they're not behaving correctly.

Right. We. We have had to like completely rethink what workforce and the, this word is key work workforce development even is because we are an economic empowerment organization that is using career access as the lever to like open doors to mobility and opportunity. But what that does is that that shift alone, I think forces you to stop asking to, to what you're saying here, it stops. It forces you to stop asking how do we develop people and to start asking how do we redesign access? And so I don't know that I'm necessarily fully opposed to a mentorship model per se. I think that needs to be probably rethought in a lot of ways. Um, but I will say that there's so much time that goes into. This baseline assumption that people need to be fixed, and then we build programming and mentorship models based on that. Instead of asking, man, how are we redesigning access for individuals that are probably really, really great, have all kinds of leadership and entrepreneurial skills and grit and determination and motivation. How do we take what's already there and how do we redesign the access that's keeping them locked out? I, I think that is where the time and the energy needs to be put, and that's really what we're doing, I think across the board at neighborhood.

This is controversial because I think what we're saying, if we, if we want, wanted to take this to the full extent, we'd be saying get rid of your job readiness curriculum in which you teach people how to code switch to ace and interview like we, or is that part of access? Is that shifting, people up and polishing them because they're not good enough? Or is that access?

I'll give you a, a quick example of how that has played out in programming changes that we've had to make. So, you know, one quick example is how we aligned our programming. To match the narratives that we are saying that we believe to be true. So one example is for years we had a six week course that we called Personal Development. And from the beginning I think we were really intentional that the content and the curriculum would not communicate in any way that people are broken or they need fixing, but. I think over time we realized that that name in and of itself, and certainly parts of the curriculum, could still be heard in that way, especially in a world that is already telling low income communities that you are the problem. And it's absolutely not what we believe. So we, we changed it. We started by just changing the name. Instead of calling that personal development, we now call that a leadership lab. Because the space is not about fixing people, it's actually about unleashing the leadership that's already there. And so in this now six week lab, our program participants are like engaging with skills that many people don't get to access until like MBA level programs, uh, advanced emotional intelligence, strategic decision making, innovative problem solving. But the vast majority of that is just unlocking and unleashing the leadership and potential and possibility that's already there. So I think when you start with these narratives. You've gotta also align your programming to make sure that things are matching that as well.

Okay, so let's talk about your actual problem statement itself and how you got there. So, I believe we started this in 2022, it's fun to see how it's evolved. So I'm gonna read some early drafts, um, that I found from my archives in 2022. And I wanna ask you what you think of these old drafts. 

So we said high concentrations of wealth in some communities results in high concentrations of poverty in others. This creates structural barriers to sustainable financial health. So even back then, you were saying. That there were structural barriers. Um, we also said adequate resources and support have been withheld from entire communities, causing many hardworking individuals to not make enough money to make ends meet for their families. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, I think our, I think our definition of the problem certainly has changed a lot over time since then. I think in those early years we were really focused on. Unequal distribution of resources and you know, some of the structural barriers that grow out of that. And I think that those things are certainly true, but I don't think they went far enough maybe is the way that I would say that. You know, I, I think probably through our lived experience since then, probably hundreds and hundreds of stories from our neighbors. And just probably just do deeper analysis. I think we're realizing that we were naming the problem maybe too narrowly, and I think we've had to get really honest about the fact, and this has probably even kind of become our problem statement, but poverty persists not because people are broken, but because the systems around them are. And generations of policies and narratives and power structures have just restricted access to opportunity and has left entire communities without the pathways or the margin or the social capital required for mobility. And I would say like boldly now, until those systems are redesigned, people are gonna continue to face barriers that no amount of personal effort is gonna ever overcome.

So I'm just listening to that for the difference between your belief and what you thought back then. I think what I'm noticing is different is that you're getting clearer on the. Urgency of the problem that, that if we do not do something, something else is gonna happen. These earlier drafts were more observations like, huh, it looks like poverty is and now your wording and your you're intent behind it is almost more like calling out a crisis.

I would say it's bolder. It's calling out a crisis, and the understanding of what the systems are that are broken is so much clearer now that we can name the systems themselves that are broken and how the work that we're doing is challenging those systems. So I think it just feels whether or not maybe it, it comes across in the statement, it feels much bolder, but also clear about exactly what's going on and how we can challenge those systems that are broken.

Could you read your latest problem statement again?

Sure. We're saying that poverty persists not because people are broken, but because the systems around them are. And I would say that our solution then had to grow just as big as the problem. And so we do this as an organization by building the relationships, the pathways, the access, the support that create a new kind of mobility infrastructure that I'm not sure that early on our problem statement or our solution could have done.

This is reminding me of a conversation we had not that long ago where we were toying with the idea of you having a team of staff who were focused on. Access, employer relationships, pipeline relationships, perceptions of poverty, community, narrative, that stuff, and then an arm of people who are doing direct service with your fellows. Is that still on your mind?

It absolutely is. So one of the programs that we want to stand up, is something that we're calling the Equity Bridge Alliance. And the heartbeat behind this Equity Bridge Alliance is going to be really creating a network of businesses that believe. Equity matters and they are willing to challenge and change their hiring practices that aligns with how low income communities can access great regional living wage employment. And yet, like you said, that's gonna need a team of people. I mean, that, that is programming that is gonna need. Infrastructure and resources and time. But man, oh man. Imagine a world that that was being changed. Imagine a group of 50 and a hundred employers that are saying, we are going to all agree to whatever that is. These tenants that say we are gonna give. Everyone from a low income community, a shot at a job, and even if they don't get the job, we are going to make sure they get feedback on why they weren't the right fit. At this time, we're going to challenge the way that we view, um, justice involved individuals and the list goes on and on. What a win. And so as an organization, yes, we do direct services. We are helping individuals navigate the system to land great regional. Living wage employment, but we can't do just direct services. We have to challenge the systems and the structures that are keeping people away from that flourishing. And so as an organization, we are learning how to, how to do both. Mm-hmm.

I'm hearing the voices of some critics who might say, uh oh, Josh is experiencing mission creep, but that's not mission creep. That is, evolution of your of what the problem requires. Mission creep would be if you, decided that you were going to have a welding program randomly, or if you were going to, certify daycare providers because there was a grant for it. Have you ever went worried about this feeling like moving into systems change? Have you ever worried about that?

I do all the time. I feel like. Yeah, I, I do all the time. I get worried about that. Um, we wanna be laser focused on ensuring the income of every family in Hampton Road surpasses the cost of living in our lifetime. We are laser focused on that transformational change, that impact statement, ensuring the income of every family in Hampton Road surpasses the cost of living. We built that together. We're laser focused on that. I think one thing that really helps me is realizing that to ensure that income hits these families, it is beyond direct services. It has to be beyond direct services if we want those direct services to actually work.

Great.

Because right now a lot of our direct services consistently hit walls that the systemic barriers that have been kind of created out there. Are keeping success from happening

Okay, so you respond to concerns about mission creep through checking it against your impact statement.

Absolutely constantly. Now that that could also, I mean, I could probably fit a whole lot of things maybe underneath my impact statement, but what I do is I look at the work that we're doing, what are the challenges to it? What keeps it from working and try to filter our next move. At the systemic level through that lens.

I've been thinking a lot about organizations evolving with their definition of the problem, and I've been wondering if a more mature organization engages in systems change while a startup will be really focused on fixing individuals. Do you think that your evolution to into working on systems change is a sign of your maturity? Congratulations, I think it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think in a lot of ways it, you know, the word that we've used so far in this conversation is just, you know, evolution. I think I. I think for us, and I think a lot of, a lot of organizations are content with direct services targeting a specific problem in going after that problem. And I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but I would say across the board, if that remains the dominant story of most of the nonprofit world, we're not going anywhere. And there needs to be organizations that do move beyond that direct services to individuals and to begin tackling the systems that create the problems in the first place. And so I think you can be an organization that just does direct services and I think you could be an organization that just does, uh, that just tries to tackle systemic issues. What I have loved about our maturing and our evolution is that we have grown into something that I feel like will make our systems change much more powerful and robust and targeted because it comes from seeing and experiencing living in that problem, um, much more than if we were just on either side.

It matches your definition of, of the problem, your belief about why it exists. So I think that you're right, the need for direct service is eternal.

Absolutely.

And you've chosen one based on your life story, based on your co-founder's life experiences and the stories you've heard that forces you to work on systems change at the same time. And I think that's a beautiful evolution.

We are unreasonable in our approach. You know, you, you gave, you gifted me that book, uh, unreasonable Hospitality. And I will tell you, and I think I told you right after I read it, I probably handed that book out to more people than any other book. I, I think that book put words to something we would, we were already living, already feeling. Um, you know, we are tired of all the ways that people say that this cannot be done. So I, I would just say. As an organization, we refuse to like shrink the vision because the problem is too big. I mean, you and I have talked extensively about this and so neighborhood is choosing the unreasonable path because I think that's what it will take to build a system where everyone actually has a real chance to thrive and survive.

So if you're looking to distill your thoughts about the problem your organization is solving into a statement, here's the formula. First, specify who or what is involved formerly incarcerated, BIPOC men. Public lands, west of the Continental divide, families with children in Wyoming. Second, locate the problem in space. Formerly incarcerated BIPOC men in the United States or in the Twin Cities, locate the problem in space. Third, choose a systemic issue, racism, patriarchy, history of war. BIPOC men coming out of the criminal justice system face a stark employment landscape. Upon release, these disparities are rooted in systemic inequities that some consider to be echoes of slavery in the modern world. Lastly, show stakes and consequences, why it matters for individuals and the broader community. So you would say as a result, they are more likely to become trapped in a cycle of recidivism due to a lack of viable alternatives. 

Calling out the systemic issue is usually the most controversial part of this, and thus the hardest. You worry that doing so will alienate some of your supporters. Yet in my experience, it gives you credibility with your biggest fans. But at the end of the day, the most important reason we call out the systemic issue is so that our solution can be more specific. 

Tailwinds is a production of Flying Whale Strategies, a consulting firm that is equipping teams to solve impossible problems. I'm so grateful to Josh Jones for our conversation on problem statements. Josh, thank you for your willingness to show us what it looks like to interrogate the problem. Our organization is solving. If you'd like to learn more about neighborhood's work, please visit thisisneighborhood.com. If you'd like to hear more about Flying Whale Strategies, please visit our website at flyingwhalestrategies.com. Thanks for listening.