Measuring the Magic
Defining impact is the first (hardest?) step of ensuring that your growth and operations are aligned with your mission and vision. Measuring Impact is a game changers in its own right. It’s especially important for nonprofits to measure their impact adequately because it ensures that stakeholders and donors are both engaged in impact. When stakeholders are engaged in measuring impact, it helps ensure organizations aren’t inadvertently causing harm. And when donors are engaged in impact, their dollars follow!
Let’s talk about the stakeholders first. If leadership has decided on a vision, defined success, and selected metrics for their impact without substantial input from their communities, they’re at great risk of causing harm. This strategy superimposes outsider values and point of view on the folks who are being served. Just that easily paternalism is born - removing the power, dignity, and ownership from the people they set out to serve!! In this way, the best practices for measuring impact begin at the organization's inception - by engaging with stakeholders and centering their input. But let’s just assume that you’re reading this because it’s annual report time and you’re figuring out how to communicate the impact of your work before you send it out to this year’s donors. Here’s what I want you to do: Reach out to 3-5 community members and ask them why your program mattered to them. How do they think about the impact of your work in their own lives and communities? (If their answers aren’t favorable or aligned with the impact you’ve defined, then it’s time to consider a pivot.) Examine what information they give you and then find the data that communicates that on a larger scale. The data you ultimately use to measure impact and report that to donors could come from a few different sources (research articles, community surveys & feedback, public data sources) but it needs to be validated by your community in order to be sure it’s worthwhile.
Now, on to donors. Last time, we dug into why your impact has to be bigger than your program activities. At the risk of oversimplifying, donors give because they want to know something beautiful happens as a result of their contribution. Years ago when I was struggling with this very issue as a nonprofit executive director, Jeff Shinabarger, founder of Plywood People and a mentor of mine, told me “No one is going to donate because of what you’ve already done.” I was proud of our credibility & history so this annoyed me but he’s right and that’s why I still remember it. Donors want to be engaged in your work. They’re more likely to give and give more when they can have a relationship with whatever comes out of their gift. They can’t do that if you’re stuck explaining what’s already happened. The best impact metrics help the donor understand what beautiful thing is going to happen as a result of their gift. And this is most compelling and most accurate when validated by the community.
So what do you do with this?
Call the beneficiaries of your work! Talk to them and ask them questions!
Look for existing data to support your impact. You have access to more than you think.
Look for one story to use as a case study.
Search google scholar.
I love this Outcomes Matrix - a free tool from Good Finance that supplies data for your area focus.
Examine your stakeholder feedback to see what information you can begin collecting to validate the impact you’re making.
If you’re still stuck, subscribe here for access to my next free strategy drop in session. We’ll talk through your specific questions and see if we can get you un-stuck.