The evidence was there.
It just wasn't
legible to the system.
Thatch helps public institutions use what communities already know. Not as illustration. As infrastructure.
Developed through work with foundations, research teams, health departments, and equity initiatives across multiple planning contexts.
Read the approachIn nature, thatch is the organic matter between soil and grass — the layer where what has lived, grown, and broken down becomes part of what can take root next.
In public health, Thatch works in that same space.
Thatch — the connective layer between what communities know and what institutions do.
Community voice is collected, not translated
Public health routinely gathers qualitative input during planning cycles. Rarely does that input reach decisions in a form institutions can act on. The gap between collection and use is where equity work stalls.
Quantitative data alone is not enough
Rates and statistics describe what is happening. They struggle to explain why, or to surface what communities already know about causes and consequences. Exclusive reliance on numbers leaves critical intelligence off the table.
The translation gap is a structural problem
This is not a failure of data quality or community engagement effort. It is a methodological gap. Institutions lack frameworks for converting narrative into the structured form their decision processes require.
Strategy, method, and capacity
in the same practice
Methodology
The Story-Based Evidence Framework (SBEF) provides a structured method for extracting decision-grade insight from community narrative. Rigorous. Reproducible. Designed for institutional contexts.
Learn SBEF →
Consulting
Thatch works directly with foundations, community-engaged research teams, health departments, and cross-sector equity initiatives to analyze existing community data, support planning and assessment cycles, and build the internal capacity to sustain this work.
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Training
Workshops and learning series that move teams beyond engagement theater toward evidence-informed decision-making. Built for practitioners, not researchers.
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Thatch is currently part of the Bio-Entrepreneurship Initiative Pathway (BIP) Accelerator at Charles R. Drew University, developing tools for turning narrative into institutional evidence.
Recent work includes a public reading and discussion of Sula during National Public Health Week, exploring literature as a method for engaging practitioners in questions of belonging, harm, and repair.
A Mercy in the Telling was recently featured by The Kresge Foundation in a national conversation on expanding how public health defines and uses evidence.
Ready to close the gap?
Whether you're funding community-engaged work, designing a research project, mid-planning cycle, or trying to understand why your community data isn't moving decisions, Thatch can help.