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.
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.
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.
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.
Nonprofit Program Evaluation Made Simple
This is a lovely book that simplifies all the academic program evaluation language so it can be readily used by nonprofits. This is a nice, easy book to read. A nice, easy primer in program evaluation, written for nonprofits. However, the book does assume that you know you need to do program evaluation - which most small- and medium-sized nonprofits do not really need to do. And, while she presents a section on reports, it's a little lean. This book is really great to read if you *want* to understand all the terms in program evaluation so you can do fancier impact measurement or talk with outside evaluators who are conducting a program evaluation with you.