How to Turn Narrative Survey Responses into Data You Can Use
I almost always recommend including open-ended questions at the end of surveys. This allows you to get some free-form, narrative responses from your clients. These narrative responses can be rich and detailed, and can give you valuable, unexpected information. But, what do you DO with them?!?
Why Benchmarking Doesn’t Work in the Social Sector
Benchmarking in the social sector is tricky because – while more productivity (i.e., serving more people) and more impact (i.e., more goodness in the world) seem like they would always be desirable – that’s not always the case! More is not necessarily better, and efficiency is often not the goal.
Data Playbook
For purpose-driven organizations, data means more than just numbers and graphs–it is about understanding what more you can do to change lives and strengthen communities. The Data Playbook, from Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, provides the building blocks you need to put data to work for your mission through a measured approach to understanding and telling stories of impact.
Actionable Measurement Guide
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Guide to Actionable Measurement is driven by three basic principles: 1) Measurement should be designed with a purpose in mind — to inform decisions and/or actions; 2) Do not measure everything but strive to measure what matters most; 3) Because the foundation’s work is organized by strategies, the data we gather help us learn and adapt our initiatives and approaches. This guide includes a results matrix, definitions of terms in our results hierarchy, and a set of measurement guidelines intended to shape internal decisions about depth, breadth, and rigor of measurement across grants and within strategies. The guide also highlights the good practices they aspire to follow to be good stewards and not increase the reporting burden faced by our grantees or distract from their work.
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