A New Partnership to Measure Impact: Learning Point Associates and Mission Measurement are two organizations paying close attention to the types of assistance states will need in order to identify metrics that will demonstrate the appropriate return on investment to both their funders and their community. It is clear that there must also be complementary tools and resources to guide state and local decision makers as they navigate this critical work of implementing programs that both stimulate economic conditions and move the education system closer to excellence for all students.

According to a report published this month by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, as many as a third of the nation’s 3.2 million teachers could retire in the next four years.  Today’s New York Times notes that “the teaching career is collapsing at both ends”, as one of every three new teachers leaves the profession within five years.  While the current economic downtown may attract new college graduates and individuals from other fields, an important education metric going forward is teacher retention and average age. -Aneesa Arshad  

The Bridgespan Group (BSG) released a report in late February 2009 called “Nonprofit MA: More Than a Tool for Tough Times.” In the report, its authors cite case examples of nonprofits that merge based on the following market characteristics:•    Large number of nonprofits with many small players•    High degree of competitive pressure•    Barriers to “organic” growth Mixed with the above-mentioned conditions, they listed several important cultural and organizational factors to determine merger viability: •    Strategic fit with services

Foundations have a responsibility to the public. After all, public taxes subsidize foundations’ tax-exempt status. Thus, it is altogether appropriate that the public expect grantmakers to prove their effectiveness. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy believes (and I second) that “regulation of grantmaking institutions is essential.” NCRP recently published its report titled "Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best: Benchmarks to Assess and Enhance Grantmaker Impact." Their criteria fall into four categories – Values, Effectiveness, Ethics, and Commitment – and intend to help foundations measure whether they are ethical and maximizing their impact. Below are the criteria that I found particularly interesting:

In their recent contribution to the Harvard Business Review, Doing Well By Doing Good? Don’t Count on It, Joshua Margolis and Hillary Anger Elfenbein rekindle the venerable debate on the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and financial performance. Since its inception, CSR has struggled to build legitimacy against forces pressing corporate social and environmental strategies to demonstrate a direct, causal relationship with stock performance.

A study produced this month shows 82% of the largest global companies produce social responsibility reports, but the reports lack comparable quantitative measures. The study was led by 3 financial management firms: WestLB AG, Walden Asset Management, and Trillium Asset Management. The study calls for "CR/sustainability reporting to be as comparable as financial reporting."End-users for these types of reports want to be able to compare companies on social dimensions and are unsatisfied with the current reporting regime (see p151). Interestingly, too, the authors note an imbalance of environmental and social indicators (see p148). Full report: www.siran.org/pdfs/WestLB_GRI_reporting.pdf