Mission Measurement Thought Scraps Feed

Measurement Should be Positive, Not Punitive

Eileen — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:28:55 -0800

It’s pretty common for most grantmakers to track the number of lives touched and dollars distributed to grantees. Those data points are great to know and sound like they have “impact” but they don’t really help grantmakers figure out what to do next.

The Risks and Woes of Doing Good

Cheryl — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:45:56 -0800

Sara Lee recently introduced a new line of whole-grain bread touting its innovative farming techniques that reduce the use of fertilizers. Natural food advocates and environmentalists can count another tick in the win column, right? Not so, according to The Cornucopia Institute.

The Quiet Conversation about Measuring Social Impact

Kim — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:16:21 -0800

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.

Better Indicators of College Success

Pranav — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:24:07 -0800

How do we know if we are preparing students for life after high school? Are our current measures of high school quality indicative of how well their graduates fare after high school? Are there existing practices that states and others can use to inform these questions?

Do Good and Save Cost: I-Go Car Sharing Expands Market, Social Impact

Cheryl — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:29:05 -0800

My ears perked up when I heard the words “save you money” at a recent CSR event hosted by Jane Madden, SVP of CSR and Sustainability at Edelman. The guest speaker, Sharon Feigon, CEO of I-Go Car Sharing, explained how her organization has grown beyond individuals to serve businesses and local governments. “While most of our customers really believe in our social and environmental impact, it’s truly the price that makes or breaks the sale,” she said. Currently a member of another car share program, I was intrigued.

The Blueprint: Measurement as a Tool for Scaling What Works

takinyemi — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:30:41 -0800

‘Why measure?’ is a question that has been bandied about by social change agents —business people, nonprofit professionals, educators—for quite some time. How we measure is also a source of debate. From randomized testing to post-activity evaluation, there is no real consensus on how and why to measure. But most people can agree that measurement is effective when it enables you to clarify desirable results, create a system to track progress, and communicate effectiveness. However, this assumes that measurement is being used to highlight what’s working in real time, not to determine attribution after the fact.

What's the Impact of Corporate Volunteerism?

Aneesa — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:03:59 -0800

Earlier this month, Starbucks hosted a Summit with leading corporations and international NGOs to discuss “Measuring the Value of Community Service”. Mission Measurement facilitated this crucial discussion and helped tease out the social and business outcomes that corporate volunteerism advances. Starbucks isn’t the first corporation or NGO to grapple with this question, but there are many challenges that have impeded a solution to measuring the value of corporate community service.

On More Possible Race to the Top Funding…….

mtallentbennis — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:02:31 -0800

This week President Obama announced he “will seek an additional $1.35 billion in next year’s budget to expand the Race to the Top competition.” As states rush to submit their 1st round Race to the Top applications, let us pause for a moment and reflect on some lessons learned from this first round.

When the Well Runs Dry: The Absence of Education Reform Funding

mtallentbennis — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:58:20 -0800

The New York Times education article In Race for U.S. School Grants Is a Fear of Winning challenged Illinois this week to think about its capacity to support Race to the Top initiative funded programs after the life of the 4 year grant.

Ratings and Results: Charity Navigator's Expanded Focus

Kim — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:56:56 -0800

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.

Using School Cultural Indicators As a GPS to Student Outcomes

mtallentbennis — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:44:53 -0800

In our quest to achieve a positive change in student outcomes, school culture indicators give us another data point to consider in the complex and ever changing equation for student success. As critical as knowing the quality of a teacher in his/her classroom, or the number of students served by a particular curricular implementation, having data that shows whether a school is on the right track for developing its desired cultural environment empowers principals and school staffs to make informed decisions about resources and enables them to make mid-course corrections before the end of the school year.

Less Fluff, More WIIFM: A More Credible Approach to Valuing CSR

Cheryl — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:44:48 -0800

The first time a client used the term “WIIFM” (pronounced whiff-um) in a sentence as though it were a real word, I thought perhaps she was speaking another language or using an industry-specific expression that I wasn’t familiar with. I quickly learned that WIIFM is not only a part of the English language but also a concept that’s relevant to every industry and every project I’ve worked on. WIIFM stands for “What’s In It For

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On Relevance

Pranav — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:58:35 -0800

EdWeek’s brief profile on John Q. Easton, head of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), drives home the importance and renewed focus on relevance and usefulness in education research. Over the years, we have collected vast sums of education data about students, teachers, schools, districts, states, and countries.
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A Sustained Response to the HIV/AIDS Pandemic Requires Continuous Business Innovation

Paurvi Bhatt — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:40:20 -0800

Survival in the global economy often requires responding to global crises such as HIV/AIDS – particularly for the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical companies striving to profitably deliver products that solve health problems will require continued creativity and innovation to survive. Maintaining a healthy balance of profitability and social impact can be challenging for many industries. This dynamic tension between delivering profits and achieving social impact is a dilemma highlighted in the pharmaceutical industry’s response to the global HIV/AIDS crisis.
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Metrics Needed to Sustain Growth of SME Investment Funds

Aneesa — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:12:49 -0800

Investment in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is growing and becoming increasingly high-profile in both the development and investment fields. A report released earlier this year by the World Resources Institute reveals that of the 20 leading SME investment funds, more than half were established after 2004. While the majority of these funds have little name recognition outside of the SME funding community, big names are entering the market.
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Where Do U.S. Students Rank in Standardized Post-Secondary Success?

Rick — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:52:12 -0800

In the national conversation about United States’ education system and student academic performance, the U.S.’s standing on standardizing tests in core subjects relative to other industrialized countries seems to be a core evidence point highlighting our struggles. But as with most measurement efforts, key performance indicators often raise more questions than they answer. This is a good thing. These questions shouldn’t only give us pause when considering the meaning of the performance itself, but also provide an opportunity to reflect on our definition of success.

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Integrated Corporate Philanthropy: Barriers and Solutions

Cheryl — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:42:58 -0800

“The business just doesn’t get what we’re trying to do here!”

“The C-suite doesn’t have time to spend on this…it’s not at the top of their priority list.”

“…We have a strategy. We’re just looking for Marketing to help us with the tagline.”
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What the Obama Administration Thinks About Our Sector

Eileen — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:47:21 -0800

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.

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It's Not How Many, But How Well

Rick — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:20:16 -0800

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."
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The Dirty Little Secret About Measurement

Campaign — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:56:27 -0800

For the last 15 years I have been focused on a single knotty question: how do you measure social impact? Across the sector, billions have been spent on evaluations, millions have been spent on capacity building, thousands of studies have been published and hundreds of conference sessions have been held. Yet no one seems to have come up with the answer. How is it that we can measure the temperature on Mars, but we can’t measure what happens within the orbit of a nonprofit organization? Why is measurement so confounding?
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