Week 7: Missions & Measures

KIEI 452

Gabrielle Lyon, PhD

2

Christy UchidaSr. Program Officer, Brinson Foundation

Deciding WHAT to measure sometimes

means asking WHEN to measure

• What is being invested? For what GOAL?

• What steps are being taken to address the

problem/issue/opportunity?

• What does any of this have to do with having or increasing

impact?

Social Impact Creation Cycle

What will you invest?

What problem are

you addressing?

What steps will you take to address problem?

How will you measure success?

How can you increase impact?

“Family of Measures”

Mission & Vision

• Impact Measures – Progress towards mission & long term objectives that drive organizational focus.

Goals & Strategies

• Activity Measures – Progress towards goals & program implementation

• Projects launched, students reached; “mobilization of resources” – we used X $ to do Y things.

Tacticts/Activities

• Capacity Measures – Progress across the ORGANIZATION; things that enable an enterprise to get things done.

• Total membership, growth in fundraising asks, diversity of earned revenue

Measurement as Learning

Social Impact Assessment: Measuring

Methods

Lines between grantmaking and investing have begun to blur.

1. Process Methods - track and monitor the efficiency and

effectiveness of outputs, variables or indicators management uses

to track ongoing operational processes. (Outputs are evaluated by

the extent to which they correlate with or cause desired social

outcomes.

2. Impact Methods - tools that relate outputs and outcomes, and

attempt to prove incremental outcomes relative to the next best

alternative.

3. Monetization Methods - monetize outcomes or impact by

assigning a dollar value to them.

Social Impact Value Chain

Map Your Social Impact Chain

Inputs Activities Outputs Outcomes

On the horizon…

• OTHER SECTORS focus on measurement in predictive ways

– Credit scores predict if you’ll pay your car loan

– Human genome predicts health factors

– Netflix predicts what you’ll watch

HOW CAN THE SECTOR GET BETTER OVER TIME?

• Standardizing outcomes

• Measuring contributions to outcomes – we don’t need to measure

every output; we need to figure out what our contribution is to

moving the needle

What could this mean practically?

• Assign programs common outcomes – common universe of

outcomes to talk about. They’re not infinite

• Focus on predictive data

• Show bang for the buck …. (Maybe)

How & When: Action Plan

Meet with Client (1) (2) (2) (3) (4)

Conduct background

research

Conduct interviews

Agree on recommendations

Fill in research holes

Build client implementation

plan

Finalize presentation and

present

WEEK: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

(1) Understand business (2) Update on progress (3) Review findings (4) Final presentation

Coming Up

2nd Peer Review

Reflective Paper

Final Project