posted on: Wednesday, August 19, 2009

by Julia Craig

A recent blog post on The Plain Dealer identified the ways in which nonprofits are demonstrating social impact to stay competitive in an increasingly challenging fundraising marketplace. As foundations and other donors tighten their belts, nonprofits must compete for fewer dollars while facing greater need. This is a story that’s been told many times during this recession.

For nonprofits like those in Ohio under scrutiny to demonstrate their worth funders, what does impact mean? Big Brothers Big Sisters tracked participants and found that adults who participated in the program as children tended to be better educated, wealthier, and have stronger relationships than peers with a similar background who were not mentored through the program. This type of study is useful for a nonprofit as it demonstrates to funders that their support contributes to success.

For smaller nonprofits without a national affiliate, conducting such research could be financially infeasible. And what about those nonprofits working on changing the system rather than providing services and individual advocacy?

NCRP’s Grantmaking for Community Impact Project has found demonstrable return on investment for grantmakers giving to advocacy and organizing. In New Mexico and North Carolina, a small sample of advocacy and organizing groups reaped billions of dollars in benefits for their communities. Our mixed methodology captures both quantitative impacts (such as passing a state Earned Income Tax Credit) and qualitative benefits (such as reducing the legal limit of uranium in groundwater). However, there is still debate in the field as to how best to measure impact, and what that word even means.

Sean Stannard-Stockton of Tactical Philanthropy recently sparked a lively debate on high performance and high impact nonprofits. He argued that a high performance nonprofit is directly observable: it is well-run and efficient with strong leadership and good management, while a high impact nonprofit is one that has a sustained impact on its community. This may not be observable except in retrospect. Stannard-Stockton’s post generated a flurry of discussion and dissent, leading John Macintosh of SeaChange Capital Partners to post a rebuttal. He contended that a high performance nonprofit “has a high impact program that is likely to be able to deliver over time under a variety of changing conditions.”

My question is, is impact always about meeting the goals of a given activity or organization? As part of the Grantmaking for Community Impact Project, we asked groups to give us examples of instances when they didn’t achieve their goals but still gained from a given campaign. Many shared stories of not winning a legislative battle, but were able to build relationships with lawmakers, cultivate leadership skills, strengthen organizational knowledge of the legislative process, and feel better prepared for the next opportunity to ensure lawmakers heard their constituents’ voices.

So in figuring out ways to measure the impact of our organizations, let’s not forget about these “soft” successes.

• Nonprofits in Northeast Ohio are being required to provide hard facts to get funding [The Plain Dealer]
• High Performance vs. High Impact Nonprofits [Tactical Philanthropy]
• A Rebuttal & an Example of a High Performance Organization [Tactical Philanthropy]

Julia Craig is research assistant at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and co-author of Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in North Carolina.