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.
US Department of Labor Statistics
The US Department of Labor provides data on employment, wages, inflation, productivity, safety and health issues in the general work setting as well as in the mining industry. The agencies that collect these statistics are the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
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.
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.
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.