ImpactStory™

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What Impact? A Framework for Measuring the Scale and Scope of Social Performance

Leaders of organizations in the social sector are under growing pressure to demonstrate their impacts on pressing societal problems such as global poverty. This Social Enterprise Initiative, Harvard Business School working paper reviews the debates around performance and impact, drawing on three literatures: strategic philanthropy, nonprofit management, and international development. We then develop a contingency framework for measuring results, suggesting that some organizations should measure long-term impacts, while others should focus on shorter-term outputs and outcomes. In closing, we discuss the implications of our analysis for future research on performance management.

2021-11-15T19:30:13+00:00Categories: Extras|Tags: , , |

Ten Reasons Not to Measure Impact—and What to Do Instead

Ten Reasons Not to Measure Impact—and What to Do Instead, a Stanford Social Innovation Review article, simplified the task of improving data collection and analysis with a three-question test. The author emphasized that if your organization cannot answer yes to at least one of the following questions, then your organization probably should not be collecting data. 1) Can and will the (cost-effectively collected) data help manage the day-to-day operations or design decisions for your program? 2) Are the data useful for accountability, to verify that the organization is doing what it said it would do? 3) Will your organization commit to using the data and make investments in organizational structures necessary to do so?

2021-10-04T14:16:41+00:00Categories: Extras|Tags: , |

The Generalizability Puzzle

The Stanford Social Innovation Review's Generalizability Puzzle is a paper that recognizes that any practical policy question must be broken into parts. Some parts of the problem will be answered with local institutional knowledge and descriptive data, and some will be answered with evidence from impact evaluations in other contexts. The generalizability framework set out in this paper provides a practical approach for combining evidence of different kinds to assess whether a given policy will likely work in a new context. If researchers and policy makers continue to view results of impact evaluations as a black box and fail to focus on mechanisms, the movement toward evidence-based policy making will fall far short of its potential for improving people’s lives.

2021-10-04T14:15:52+00:00Categories: Extras|Tags: , , , |

Kids Count Data Book

The 32nd edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's KIDS COUNT® Data Book describes how children across the United States were faring before — and during — the coronavirus pandemic. This 2021publication continues to deliver the Foundation’s annual state rankings and the latest available data on child well-being. It identifies multiyear trends — comparing statistics from 2010 to 2019. In addition, the report shares data on how families endured throughout the pandemic.

2021-11-15T20:31:28+00:00Categories: Extras|Tags: , , , , , |

Urban Data Catalog

The Urban Institute's Data Catalog includes data sets on education, family, health policy, poverty, children, labor force, housing, race, economic growth, youth, immigration and more.

2021-11-15T20:31:21+00:00Categories: Extras|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

Crime Solutions

The National Institute of Justice’s CrimeSolutions data can be used to help policymakers inform funding decisions, trainers improve their training programs, and researchers become more informed on criminal justice research. CrimeSolutions is comprised of two components — a web-based clearinghouse of programs and practices and a process for identifying and rating those programs and practices. After the programs and practices undergo rigorous evaluations and meta-analyses, the site assesses the strength of the evidence about whether these programs achieve criminal justice, juvenile justice, and crime victim services outcomes in order to inform practitioners and policy makers about what works, what doesn't, and what's promising.

2021-11-15T20:31:14+00:00Categories: Extras|Tags: , , |

State Health Departments

State health department portals are a comprehensive source for community health assessment, public, and population health data. The data portals are developed to provide a convenient access point for health-related data. Depending on your state, areas of information may include health and behavior, demographics, communicable disease, maternal and child health, environmental health, social determinants of health, injury and violence and mental health to name a few. This site aims to protect health and promote wellbeing of residents.

2021-11-15T20:31:02+00:00Categories: Extras|Tags: , |

US Department of Health

HealthData.gov has a wide range of topics, including environmental health, medical devices, Medicare & Medicaid, social services, community health, mental health, and substance abuse. This site is dedicated to making high value health data more accessible to entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers in the hopes of better health outcomes for all.

2021-11-15T20:30:52+00:00Categories: Extras|Tags: , |

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