Nonprofits fall on difficult financial times. Competition for funding is getting fierce. Foundation endowments decline by 25%. Donors want to understand their return on investment. Organizations are closing their doors.  While these are the current and most pervasive headlines about the nonprofit sector, there is another kind of conversation and groundswell of activity percolating: how to best measure or assess social impact. It is no longer enough for organizations to say that they do good work because their mission statement references the social change that they aim to generate. Today, more and more organizations are looking for, developing and finding meaningful ways to understand and communicate the results of their work. 

We often start our workshops and training sessions with examples of Charity Navigator’s nonprofit ratings data. We compare an organization with a four star rating to one with a one star rating and based on the data and ask the group to select the organization that should receive a $10,000 grant.

  CSR, nonprofit, and foundation professionals see the fall leaves turn and smell something in the air – conferences. The economy didn’t change the attendance numbers, energy, or engagement at this year’s Independent Sector Conference in Detroit, Michigan or the NetImpact Conference in Ithaca, New York. This particular thoughtscrap will focus on the highlights from the Independent Sector Conference in Detroit, Michigan.    The opening plenary by Melody Barnes, President Obama’s chief domestic policy advisor, was nothing short of insightful and inspirational. I’m glad she gets to play golf with President Obama.   

A recent article on Change.org addresses the commonly made assertion: There are too many nonprofits.  The author argues, rightly in my judgment, that the total number of nonprofits is irrelevant.  "What we need to be talking about," he asserts, "is how to get more good nonprofits, and fewer bad ones."

  It has become common practice for nonprofits and corporations to partner in a variety of ways. One could involve a corporation sponsoring a nonprofit event. Another kind of partnership could involve co-creation of a product line specific to that partnership. According to Mark Kramer’s recent article, “Catalytic Philanthropy” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (Fall 2009), it’s not only beneficial but absolutely necessary for the two sectors to collaborate, leveraging all available resources, in order to achieve the next generation of long-term social impact. 

How much does the organization spend on overhead? How much of the organization’s budget is dedicated to programs? What about fundraising? Are these really the right questions to ask?

A recent blog post at GOOD touched on a key concept in the design of effective data visualization: “Every form of visualization should tell a story. Unfortunately there is limited attention and time to process all the stories. So the gist of the story, or its immediate impact, should be visible right away. The term I like to use for this principle is “glanceability.” What does a visualization tell us before we take time to analyze it?”

The social sector is abuzz with language related to measuring results, measurable impact, and outcomes-based thinking these days, but what do these terms really mean for funders? 

At a recent client meeting, the Executive Director of a large advocacy and policy organization frustratingly asked, “I wish I had a way to measure our work, in a way that makes sense not only internally, but externally…how can I measure policy and advocacy work?” We hear similar sentiments from the majority of clients, especially those that work on policy and advocacy. Achieving policy change can take years and at the end of the day, is typically measured based on whether or not a piece of legislation has been passed. We, and the people who live and breathe policy and advocacy work, understand that there are many intermediate steps that happen in order to get to that point.

Often met with a dreadful shudder or apathetic roll of the eyes, measurement can be an unfriendly topic among leaders of nonprofit organizations or program officers.  It can be seen as academic exercise that yields little useful information or, worse yet, a way for innovative and likely effective programs to be pushed off the table because measuring their impact seems impossible to do without unlimited time and resources.