Strategic Online Communications for Nonprofits

Improving Evaluation through Shared Measurement Technologies

August 19th, 2009

Web-based technologies are revolutionizing the way nonprofits do business. We can now communicate instantaneously with beneficiaries through content management systems and social media. We can manage stakeholder relations more efficiently with CRM tools; access new tools and best practices through listservs; and even raise money online.

But until recently one of the greatest weaknesses of our sector had not yet been addressed by technology in any comprehensive way: Impact Evaluation.

Some technologies (Salesforce and others) have helped nonprofits streamline process evaluation measures and track progress against key benchmarks. But few tools that address the three key components of project evaluation (performance measures, outcome measures and impact evaluation) have made their way into the mainstream nonprofit circuit.

A recent study funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and implemented by FSG Social Impact Advisors entitled Breakthroughs in Shared Measurement and Social Impact, reviewed several interesting technology initiatives with evaluation implications for the entire nonprofit sector.

Often donors fund specific projects, request a report from the grantee, and the process of tracking social change stops there. According to the report, “The most fundamental concern is that this focus on individual grants and isolated nonprofit initiatives undercuts the sector’s ability to solve complex social problems.”

The study looks at three types of platforms that have recently been developed to address that concern:

Shared Measurement Platforms – allow organizations to choose from a set of measures within their fields and use web-based tools to inexpensively collect, analyze and report on their performance or outcomes;
Comparative Performance Systems – require all participants within a field to report on the same measures using identical definitions and methodologies;
Adaptive Learning Systems – engage a large number of organizations working on different aspects of a single complex issue in an ongoing, facilitated process that establishes comparative performance metrics. These systems also help coordinate efforts and enable participants to learn from each other.

Each type of system has its advantages and is more adapted to small nonprofits, donors, or community stakeholders respectively. But all of these systems have the capacity to transform the nonprofit sector because they pool data to better understand the big picture. Each system helps collectively share field-specific lessons learned, and allows donors to reward programs with good results. They also help allign goals among different organizations and create a collaborative approach to problem solving that enriches the work of every participant.

The great news is that some of these systems are now available for nonprofits to adopt, or for entire communities to tailor to their needs. One of them, Pulse, will even become available through the Salesforce.com AppExchange near the end of 2009.

The following list includes some of the systems featured in the report: