Outcomes-What Do You Measure?

By Joe Hungler on February 14th, 2008

Non-profits no longer live in a world where they can depend solely on anecdotal evidence of success. The United Way, other grantors and donors all want to see outcome measures. Our organization has focused a lot of time and energy developing our measures. We focused on what truly mattered in order for us to achieve both our mission and our strategic plan goals. It has been worth the time and allows us to track our progress much better than in the past. We now go over them in regular Leadership Team meetings and are starting to review them in Program Director’s meetings as well. It has helped make priorities clear to everyone. It also keeps surprises out of performance reviews since most goals are reviewed at least monthly. I Will Teach You to Be Rich uses a great story to make his point on measurement and conventionally thinking. It is focused on individual development, but it applies equally to organizational development. Tactical Philanthropy has a good conversation on non-profit metrics. The Center for What Works has some tools for measuring outcomes too. The Nonprofiteer has a simpler solution in Of metrics and mission, and a modest proposal, ”What should all charities do, and how?” The best answer to that question should be provided by every charity to every prospective donor. It should be the headline on your Website: “We do BLANK so that BLANK will occur. Won’t you help us make that happen?”Every charity able to fill in those two blanks will be able to fill in its coffers, too. The Question of Leadership asks Why Measure? Brad makes a strong point: “If you aren’t going to use a metrics to influence or change your actions, don’t waste the effort capturing it in the first place.Metrics should provide guidance on the future. They should not simply be a reflection of the past.” If you need survey tools as part of your measurements, Idealware has some options. We use suvery monkey for the retention survey that I posted about here and are planning on using it for 360 reviews in the future. How does your organization use measurements?