Standards and Deviations
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008We spend so much time promoting the outcomes-based performance measurement model for the non-profit sector, that we sometimes forget one of it’s most fundamental problems: it does not currently offer a generally accepted standard of outcomes. It is often challenge enough to convince the relevant donors and/or charities of the value of outcomes measurement, but even after winning that challenge we are quickly confronted with another: which are the “correct” outcomes to measure?
Consider the market of charities working for affordable housing, particularly critical here in NYC where real estate prices stubbornly defy reports of credit crunches and imminent recession. “Number of available housing units” is an obvious metric of quantity, but what about issues of quality? Where does safety fit into the equation? What about measuring subjective outcomes like quality of life? We critically need at least an initial set of outcomes that considers all these questions - and fortunately we have one very promising source for just that: The Center for What Works (CWW).
CWW states their mission as:
“improving social sector results through benchmarking for nonprofits, a strategy to facilitate outcomes measurement and reporting by linking nonprofits and funders through a common language.”
This kind of talk is music to socialmarket’s ears. The notion of a common language is particularly compelling, since it would be tragic to see the coalition of support for outcomes measurement fall apart for lack of clarity on implementation. CWW (along with the Urban Institute) has created an impressively coherent road map for fourteen non-profit markets (including affordable housing) as well as a generic taxonomy to implement those not yet covered. I encourage you to click the link above (or here) to look for yourself - and see if you agree.
With enough momentum behind them, we envision CWW becoming the de-facto standard for performance benchmarking across the nonprofit sector. We think that their outcomes taxonomies are a sensational way to move nonprofit outcomes measurement forward in a highly practical - and measured - manner.
