What Are We Measuring?
by mollypenn
In the past decade, there has been a focus on assessment and evaluation. Much of this focus has come from foundations, who want more justification of the effectiveness of nonprofit strategies. The result has been many nonprofits looking for data they can measure – how many people served, how many programs run, etc. I call these “nonprofit widgets,” small, concrete, measurable pieces of information. The problem with nonprofit widgets is that they tell us very little about real effectiveness.
I have heard from many nonprofit Executive Directors about their frustration at having to measure this information. Their frustration exists on several levels. First, they have to have staff and systems to measure this information, and foundations do not often want to support those costs, but still want the information measured. Second, they feel that a large amount of time is spent measuring data which may or may not be truly useful to them as managers.
So if the current methods are frustrating to both nonprofits and foundations, then how should we be measuring our effectiveness? By far, the harder things to “meaure” are the qualitative aspects of mission-work. Are clients happier, more satisfied, more effective in their lives? These are the big questions nonprofits wrestle with (and the reason they exist), and it it hard to know how to measure those.
Meauring effectiveness in the nonprofit field cannot be dictated solely by data. Data is just a beginning, and I would submit, a relatively small part of understanding effectiveness. Those widgets are what are commonly known as “outputs” vs. “outcomes.” We need to focus more on outcomes – the large-scale, long-term change nonprofits seek to bring about. Widgets are incremental, and therefore are a weak measure of a large-scale, long-term outcome.
Evaluation should be a living practice – not a data gathering process that happens only periodically. Nonprofit board meetings should involve a review of widget data, combined with a broad discussion organized around the question “what does this tell us about how well we are accomplishing our mission?” This kind of discussion will inevitably open other questions, such as “are we measuring the right things?”
And here is the crux of what it means to have a living practice: the answers to these questions are less important than the process of asking the questions and engaging in the discussion!
Board members will become far more engaged by these types of discussions, than by budget review and committee reports. And that is the level you want them to be involved – policy and direction setting. So in addition to having a strategic plan, organizations should regularly question themselves and their board about how well they are doing, and what they should be measuring. This will close the loop on the strategic plan – supporting the relationship between progress on objectives, and progress on mission.
