2015 Donor Newsletter V.1

Measuring that Matters

How do you know whether you are making any difference in the lives of the people you serve? What is your success rate for each program? How do you know if a particular program your organization provides is effective?

These are just a few of the ways nonprofit organizations are being asked to show impact. Increasingly all nonprofit human service organizations, like Child & Family Service, are being asked to demonstrate, with hard data and outcome measures, that they are producing a measurable benefit for the people they serve.

At CFS we believe the above questions need to be answered and that the nonprofit organizations that step up to the challenge of demonstrating effectiveness and impact will be the organizations that thrive into the future. That is why we have made outcome measurement a top priority for CFS and we are making great strides in this area.

We began back in 2012 to gain the support of all of our executive/senior leaders to commit to measuring results. This was a critical first step because without a commitment from the top we could not become an outcomes-driven organization. Once leadership buy-in was secured, we began to identify champions across the organization all over the state. A steering committee was formed and a model was selected for outcome measurement.

We selected the Results-Based Accountability model that was developed by Mark Friedman of the Fiscal Policy Studies Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The beauty of this model is its simplicity in answering three outcome questions:

1. How much did you do?

2. How well did you do it?

3. Is anyone better off?

We now ask a fourth question: How can we do better?

Ultimately, CFS will develop outcome measures for all of our 40+ programs statewide. We are well along the path to making this a reality and look forward to sharing with all of you (donors, funders, staff, public officials, volunteers, program participants, human service provider partners, etc.) the results we are achieving in the coming months and years.

Mahalo to all of you for your continued support!