Admitting Failure

I just came across this fascinating website. What if we had something like this for Christian mission? The site is devoted to economic development failures. Want to read some case studies on stuff that didn't work? Click here. Below is how the website describes its purpose.

We're all in this together, thousands of people working to eradicate poverty, inequality and unnecessary suffering around the world. It's an incredible, global effort, but there is a problem. We aren't sharing information. With that many people working independently towards the same goal, it's inevitable that approaches will be duplicated. That's wonderful if the idea works, but wasteful if it's already been proven ineffective. Unfortunately, it happens all to often, and the results aren't just financial. Lives are quite literally at stake every time a failure is repeated.

Admittingfailure.com aims to change that reality. At its simplest, it's a space to publicly acknowledge that something didn't work in order to ensure that the mistake isn't repeated. But it also aims to be a catalyst for change within the development sector that goes well beyond simple information sharing.

Imagine field staff who have the freedom to publicly share results, good and bad, in order to ensure subsequent efforts are not simply repetitions of ideas that have already been proven ineffective.

Imagine project managers who create space for field staff to innovate, rewarding learning as much as success.

Imagine NGOs that adapt and adjust constantly to the stream of information coming from the field – always looking for ways to improve the effectiveness of their work and making real-time adjustments when possible.

Imagine donors who are willing to support intelligent innovation and experimentation, accepting the possibility of failure as a necessary step on the path to success.

Admittingfailure.com is an effort to make these ideas into realities, accelerating development by ensuring that we learn from failures instead of repeat them—that we are failing forward.