| Course | HLTH 6880 Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation: A Global Perspective |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 2 |
| Paper type | Venture evaluation discussion post |
| Length | About 600 words, 4 pages |
| Format | Discussion post, APA 7 citations |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | graduate health administration program |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HLTH 6880 Week 2
Week 2 Discussion: Initial Post
Does Living Goods Solve the Problem It Names? Activity, Effect and Who Pays
The venture I chose is Living Goods, a social enterprise known for community health workers who visit households, give advice on child health, make referrals and sell basic health products. The claim it is best known for is that this model reduces child deaths in poor rural areas. My question is whether there is evidence of that effect from outside the organization's own materials, and who pays for it.
There is unusually strong outside evidence. A randomized evaluation in Uganda, published in a peer-reviewed economics journal, assigned villages at random to receive a locally recruited agent who conducted home visits, educated households, gave medical advice and referrals and sold preventive and curative products. After three years, under-five mortality in treated villages was 27% lower, at an estimated average cost of $68 per life-year saved (Nyqvist et al., 2019). The researchers measured an effect, a change in the condition the venture names, not just activity such as visits made or products sold. Most ventures praised in class never reach that standard.
That distinction matters because most of what ventures report is activity. Households visited, agents trained and products sold describe effort and reach; they do not show that children are healthier. A useful framework for social performance separates outputs from outcomes and asks whether an organization's results are within its control or only influenced by it (Ebrahim & Rangan, 2014). On that framework, the Uganda trial reports an outcome, and it does so with a comparison group, so the effect is plausibly caused by the program rather than by trends that would have happened anyway.
What the trial does not tell me is whether the model as it runs today, in other countries and at a larger size, still produces that effect. The evaluation describes a specific design at a specific time. If the agents' tasks, pay or supervision have changed since, the outcome may have changed too. I could not find an independent evaluation of the current model, and I would rather say that than assume the 2019 result travels unchanged.
On who pays, the evaluated design combined two sources: households paid for the products they bought, and the agent earned from those sales, while the costs of recruiting, training and supervising agents were covered by the organization, which relies on outside funders. That creates a question about whether the payer's interests point the same way as the beneficiary's. An agent who earns from sales has a reason to visit households that buy, which may not be the households with the sickest children. The trial's mortality result suggests the incentive did not undermine the health effect in that setting, but the tension is built into the design, and governance research on hybrid organizations describes exactly this risk of mission drift when revenue and mission depend on different behavior (Ebrahim et al., 2014).
My verdict: on the evidence available, the model solved the problem it named in the setting where it was evaluated, and it did so at low cost per life-year. I would not extend that verdict to its current operations without a newer independent evaluation, and I would want to know how the organization monitors whether agents' sales incentives steer visits away from the poorest households.
Question for the group: has anyone found an independent evaluation of a community health venture where the agents are paid by salary rather than by sales? Comparing the two would tell us whether the sales incentive is part of what made the Uganda result work, or something the model succeeded despite.
References
Ebrahim, A., Battilana, J., & Mair, J. (2014). The governance of social enterprises: Mission drift and accountability challenges in hybrid organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 34, 81-100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2014.09.001
Ebrahim, A., & Rangan, V. K. (2014). What impact? A framework for measuring the scale and scope of social performance. California Management Review, 56(3), 118-141. https://doi.org/10.1525/cmr.2014.56.3.118
Nyqvist, M. B., Guariso, A., Svensson, J., & Yanagizawa-Drott, D. (2019). Reducing child mortality in the last mile: Experimental evidence on community health promoters in Uganda. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 11(3), 155-192. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20170201
The Walden HLTH 6880 Week 2 instructions
Week 2 posts in this course commonly take a well-known venture and test its central claim. Name the venture and its claim in the first lines. Find evidence from outside the organization's own materials, ideally an independent evaluation, and say whether it measures activity, such as visits or products sold, or effect, a change in the condition the venture names. Identify who pays and whether that party's interests point the same way as the beneficiary's. State plainly what you could not verify, especially whether an evaluation describes the venture as it runs today. Reach a verdict you are willing to defend, without accusing anyone of bad faith. Cite every claim about a named organization. End with a specific question that a classmate could help answer, rather than a general invitation to comment.
How this HLTH 6880 Week 2 example is built
The post opens by naming Living Goods and its claim about child deaths. The second paragraph reports the Uganda evaluation by Nyqvist and colleagues: villages assigned at random to a sales agent saw under-five mortality 27% lower after three years, at about $68 per life-year saved. The next part separates outputs from outcomes using Ebrahim and Rangan and explains why the trial measured an effect. It then notes that no independent evaluation of the current model was found. The money section explains that agents earned from sales and that the organization relied on outside funders, citing Ebrahim, Battilana and Mair on drift. The verdict and a closing question about salaried agents finish the post.
Where the marks sit in the HLTH 6880 Week 2 rubric
Posts that admire and posts that debunk receive similar marks when neither shows evidence. Credit goes to separating activity from effect and saying which one the sources support. Attribution is checked closely because the subject is a real organization, and an unsupported claim about it is an accuracy problem. Following the money, and asking whether the payer's interests match the beneficiary's, earns substantial credit. Naming what could not be checked shows honesty. Explaining a venture's results by the character of the country it works in loses credit, since it replaces analysis. A closing question that names a specific gap in the evidence is rewarded more than a general prompt. A defended verdict, stated in plain terms, is expected by the end.
HLTH 6880 Week 2 help from the desk
Discussion posts on famous ventures often repeat the organization's own impact figures, which describe activity rather than effect, or swing to criticism without evidence. Others ignore who pays. Start by writing the venture's central claim in one sentence. Then search for an evaluation by someone other than the venture, and read what it actually measured. Next, trace the money: who pays the workers, who pays for the products and who covers the rest. Finally, write one paragraph on what you could not find out, because that paragraph often contains the most useful question for the group. We can draft a venture evaluation post for your discussion that tests a named organization's claim against independent evidence.
Get a HLTH 6880 Week 2 example written to your instructions
Name the venture your section is discussing, attach the prompt and the rubric, and a Week 2 post arrives in 24 to 48 hours with its claim, its outside evidence and its verdict in place. The first is free. Everything cited is public, which is what lets a classmate check it.
More HLTH 6880 papers and graduate health administration program samples
- HLTH 6880 Week 1: Social Venture Problem Statement
- HLTH 6880 Week 3: Social Venture Opportunity Brief
- HLTH 6880 Week 4: Social Enterprise Business Model
- HLTH 6880 Week 5: Beneficiary and Payer Analysis
- HLTH 6880 Week 6: Social Venture Theory of Change
- HLTH 6880 Week 7: Cross-Country Venture Comparison
- HLTH 6880 Week 8: Social Impact Measurement Plan
- HLTH 6880 Week 9: Social Venture Peer Critique
- HLTH 6880 Week 10: Social Venture Scale Plan
- HLTH 6880 Week 11: Full Social Venture Proposal
- HLTH 6840 Week 2: Policy Stance Discussion Post
- HLTH 6100 Week 2: Credentialing Discussion Post
- HLTH 6771 Week 2: Readiness Claim Discussion Post
- HLTH 6200 Week 2: Hazard Selection Discussion Post
HLTH 6880 Week 2 questions, answered
Where can I find a free HLTH 6880 Week 2 sample paper?
The discussion post on Living Goods appears on this page, free to read.
Which venture does the HLTH 6880 Week 2 post examine?
Living Goods, a social enterprise whose community health agents visit households, refer and sell basic health products.
What outside evidence does it use?
A randomized evaluation in Uganda that found 27% lower under-five mortality in villages with an agent, at about $68 per life-year saved.
How does the post distinguish activity from effect?
Visits made and products sold are activity; a change in child mortality is effect, and the trial measured effect against a comparison group.
What could the post not verify?
Whether the model as it operates today, in other places and at larger size, still produces the effect found in 2019.