Service

A Practical Guide for Engaging Stakeholders in Developing Evaluation Questions

This practical guide offers best practices that encourage soliciting input from stakeholders early in the evaluation design process to address specific stakeholder interests for improving program effectiveness, influencing policy decisions, and instituting behavioral and organizational change. The guide describes a five-step process for engaging stakeholders in developing evaluation questions, and includes four worksheets to facilitate the planning and implementation of a stakeholder engagement process.

Best Practice

Service

Apricot Outcomes Achievement Software

The Apricot Outcomes Achievement Software is a tool for human services, arts, environmental, and advocacy nonprofit programs looking to collect, maintain, and report client/consumer, service and performance data - with minimum expense and maximum impact measurement. Nonprofit users can attract new funding with donor and volunteer tracking and outcomes management tools. The Outcomes Palette also includes visually engaging and easy-to-use bar and pie charts for outcomes reporting to stakeholders.

Service

Ashoka Measuring Effectiveness Questionnaire

This tool aims to understand the impact of entrepreneurs receiving funds to do social sector work. It uses an annual self-response survey designed to track the progress of cohorts of Ashoka Fellows over time, distributed among groups of social entrepreneurs at the five- and ten-year anniversary of their Ashoka fellowship. The survey employs a group of proxy indicators which track data that can be aggregated across divergent fields of work, such as frequency with which the fellows' work has been replicated by other organizations and level of influence the fellow has had on public policy. Ashoka staff also carries out case studies with a subset of fellows to obtain more in-depth information.

Service

BACO Ratio

This tool quantifies a potential investment's social output and compares it to the universe of existing charitable options for that explicit social issue. The BACO calculation is driven by three factors: financial leverage, enterprise efficiencies, and technology leverage.

Service

Balanced Scorecard

The Balanced Scorecard provides a performance management methodology. It measures operational performance in terms of four outcome perspectives: financial, customer, business process, and learning growth. Metrics used include CAGR of revenue, compound annual growth rate of "lives touched," and other customized measures of program quality as well as metrics related to building critical organizational capacity and competencies.

Service

Benchmark Report

This tool is a report that provides social impact investors with a comprehensive comparison of organizations using a similar intervention model to address a social issue, highlighting those which are the most efficient, effective, and sustainable. It includes an overview of the organizations using a similar approach, comparative evaluation of organizational performance based upon general and subsector-specific indicators, and clear recommendation of which organizations would most benefit from investment.

Service

Beneficiary Perception Report (BPR)

This is a tool that gathers feedback from program beneficiaries. CEP's current work on beneficiary perceptions is focused on students of foundation-supported high schools through a student survey project called YouthTruth. Developed in partnership with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, YouthTruth systematically collects meaningful feedback and reports it back in ways that can influence decision making by funders, as well as by schools, school districts, and school networks.

Service

BluePrint 1.0

This workbook offers a methodology to create a relatively straightforward set of measures that an organization can use to work through critical areas of organizational development. It is not intended to represent all of the operating actions or delegated tasks within an organization. As an organization fills in the worksheets, it should focus on reaching greater clarity around a small set of core directions and measures.

Service

Board Service ROI Tracker

Based on True Impact's Volunteerism ROI Tracker, this web-based tool tailors its analysis to board service programs to allow non-profit organizations and socially conscious businesses to analyze their community outreach by examining social and business-related ROI. It allows users to analyze the value of service from leaders and decision makers and offers suggestions for improving their outputs and outcomes, as well as benchmarks for comparison.

Service

Building a Performance Measurement System

This methodology offers a comprehensive, flexible, customizable framework for performance management that can complement planning or strategic tools, such as the Theory of Change and logic models. This approach can help streamline existing measurement efforts or provide an efficient approach to building a performance measurement system from the ground up. Root Cause's how-to guide, "Building a Performance Measurement System", describes a five-step process for building or refining a performance measurement system that will serve as an essential tool for assessing an organizationÕs progress in carrying out its mission and identifying opportunities for improvement.

Impact Tool

Service

Charity Analysis Framework

The Charity Analysis Framework is a tool that evaluates grantees in the human welfare sector. Its analysis focuses on several criteria within six key areas: activities, results, leadership, staff and other resources, finances and ambition, in order to answer the following questions: 1) Is the charity tackling the most important issues?; 2) Is it tackling them in ways that make a significant difference?; 3) Has it got ambition, leadership and resources to continue to be effective? The results are also displayed in a Grading Grid, ranging from Excellent to Below Expectations.

Service

Community Tool Box

United States

The Community Tool Box is a set of best practices that provides more than 7,000 pages of practical information to support community health and development work. The focus is on specific practical skills, such as conducting a meeting or participatory evaluation. The Evaluating the Initiative section provides a framework and guidance for developing an evaluation of a community health program or initiative. The Examples section provides useful case studies showing how various projects and programs have used the resources in the tool box to conduct their own evaluations.

Americas

Service

Comparative Constituency Feedback

This is a tool for obtaining feedback on a program's perception by various stakeholders (it can be applied at different points along the development value chain, between funders and grantees, and between organizations and their primary constituents). It uses a questionnaire to collect perceptions from organizationsÕ constituents on key aspects of the organizationsÕ performance. The questionnaire is administered simultaneously to a comparable constituency group for a cohort of similar organizations.

Impact Tool

Service

Compass Index Sustainability Assessment

This tool determines the level of sustainability of an organization's operations. Primarily used by cities, communities, companies, or organizations, this versatile tool has several versions, including: (1) for large companies, to assess them from the outside; (2) for SMEs and investment targets assessed in detail, from the inside; (3) cities and communities, using a multi-stakeholder development process; and (4) organizations, foundations, schools and other entities. The Compass clusters indicators into four components of sustainability: N=Nature, E=Economy, S=Society, and W=Well-being; for institutional evaluation, a fifth category is added: Synergy. Within each of the categories, between 5 and 20 parameters covering different facets are measured. For company assessments, responses to each section are weighted according to main areas of activity and impact to arrive at a score of 100 possible points. Metrics assess energy usage, material flows, community interactions - and are both qualitative and quantitative.

Service

Considering Evaluation

This document provides overall guidance about methods of evaluation and assessment for social justice and movement building work. It includes case studies and worksheets to help outline an evaluation, starting on p. 11.

Service

Cost Benefit Analysis

This tool monetizes the benefits and costs associated with an intervention. It takes the perspective of society as a whole and considers the costs and dollar-valued outcomes aggregated across all stakeholders (government sector or individuals as taxpayers, program participants or private individuals, the rest of society). The output from cost-benefit analysis can be measures of net benefits (benefits Ð costs), the ratio of benefits to cost (benefit-cost ratios), or the internal rate of return (the rate of growth a project is expected to generate).

Impact Tool

Service

Cost Effectiveness Analysis

This tool calculates a ratio of cost to a non-monetary benefit or outcome. The focus may be on one domain of impact (e.g. crime, student achievement) or multiple areas of impact. However, measures of cost-effectiveness can only account for one area of program impact at a time. Since program impacts are measured in natural units (e.g. life year saved, child graduating from high school), unless those units are common across all areas of impact, it is not possible to aggregate across them.

Impact Tool

Service

Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best

This best practice provides guidelines on values (e.g., provides at least 50 percent of its grant dollars to benefit lower-income communities, provides at least 25 percent of its grant dollars for advocacy), effectiveness (e.g., provides at least 50 percent of its grant dollars for general operating support), ethics (maintains an engaged board of at least five people who include among them a diversity of perspectives including of the community it serves and who serve without compensation), and commitment (pays out at least 6 percent of its assets annual in grants, invests at least 25 percent of its assets in ways that support its mission) criteria for evaluating philanthropy. It does not include scoring system, relative weighting system, or ranking.

Best Practice

Service

Dalberg Approach

The Dalberg Approach is a customized performance evaluation method that starts with development of a project's theory of change and considers each segment of the impact value chain. The information is then benchmarked often against a traditional business to tease out the value of using a double bottom line approach.

Service

DevResults

This practical guide offers best practices that encourage soliciting input from stakeholders early in the evaluation design process to address specific stakeholder interests for improving program effectiveness, influencing policy decisions, and instituting behavioral and organizational change. The guide describes a five-step process for engaging stakeholders in developing evaluation questions, and includes four worksheets to facilitate the planning and implementation of a stakeholder engagement process.

Service

Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) Standard

The Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) Standard offers a best practice by outlining the key elements for practically and credibly estimating the results of Private Sector Development programmes, in a process which can be managed by programmes internally. It involves a few common impact indicators to ensure that donors will be able to add up their results across country programmes. The Standard is being piloted on a multi-agency basis; the DCED invites new programmes to join in adopting the approach.

Service

Due Diligence Framework for Scaling Initiatives

The Due Diligence Framework for Scaling Initiatives (beta) provides funders with guidelines and best practices on basic topics to cover when doing due diligence on scaling initiative. A supplement for funders assessing the scalability of a program or social investment, the framework is geared toward program replication and practice dissemination models of scaling. Currently in beta, revisions are expected as the framework is reviewed, used, and modified. Additional due diligence frameworks for policy initiatives, systems change efforts, and other models of scaling are also in the works.

Best Practice

Service

Efforts to Outcomes (ETO) Software

ETO is a tool that measures the impact of funding. It is a performance management software tool that helps grantees track and report efforts to funders.

Impact Tool

Service

Evaluating Development Co-Operation

This is a best practice that offers guidance in developing norms and standards for evaluation in an effort to improve humanitarian aid programs and policy. The approach offers a core set of principles, along with five evaluation criteria: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, sustainability, and a framework for peer reviews and assessment.

Best Practice

Service

Evaluating the Impact of Development Projects on Poverty: A Handbook for Practitioners

This best practices handbook provides project managers and policy analysts with the tools needed for evaluating project impact. The handbook presents an overview of concepts and methods, key steps of implementation, analytical techniques through a case study, and a discussion of lessons learned from a set of reviewed evaluations.

Best Practice

Service

Evaluation Plan Builder

This is a method that transfers key data from the Logic Model Builder and moves from goal-setting to identification of evaluation questions, indicators, and data collection strategies for evaluating program outcomes and implementation.

Best Practice

Service

Evaluation Principles and Practices

A thorough document created for a more comprehensive internal understanding of the role of evaluation at the Hewlett Foundation, "Evaluation Principles and Practices" serves as a guide for foundations and grantees looking to better understand the best practices and principles of evaluation. The document provides a broad overview of different types of evaluations with cursory instruction on implementation in the context of organization-wide adoption. It is organized into four substantive sections: (1) Principles, (2) Organizational Roles, (3) Practice Guide, and (4) Special Evaluation Cases. It also includes a helpful glossary of terms.

Best Practice

Service

External Review of Program Strategy (Getting an Expert View)

This is a method to assess foundation strategy and potential for impact. It consists of a wise person review to answer five key questions: 1) Are we addressing critical opportunities and needs in the field? 2) Have we devised appropriate strategies for using these opportunities and meeting these needs? 3) Have we effectively implemented our strategies? 4) What should we consider doing differently in the future? 5) What has been the role and/or contribution of the foundation as a funder in the field? How are the foundation and its grants perceived? The method can be and has included field-wide surveys, commissioned papers by field experts, and expert panel meetings.

Best Practice

Service

Fair Trade Certification

Fair Trade Certification is a tool that allows agricultural products to bear the label "fair trade certified." The Fair Trade Certified label is a guarantee that Fair Trade prices and "social premiums"--funds dedicated to community development initiatives such as education, health systems, and women's empowerment projects, as well as productive investments in product quality or related areas--were paid to cooperatives or other farmers' and workers' organizations by U.S.-based companies offering FTC products. These payments are verified by TransFair USA's supply-chain auditing services. TransFair USA's certification process combines desk audits and periodic on-site inspections of U.S. production facilities. In addition, certified products are guaranteed to have been sourced from cooperatives or other organizations in the developing world that meet international standards for environmental performance and progress, democratic and transparent governance, and working conditions. These criteria are verified by regular on-site inspections carried out by TransFair USA's partners in the global Fair Trade certification and labeling network, which spans 21 countries in the global North together with 60 developing nations.

Impact Tool

Service

Foundation Performance Assessment Framework

The Performance Assessment Framework is a best practice that enables foundations to monitor progress towards advancing their mission and organizational goals. The James Irvine FoundationÕs documentation of this framework can be used to create an individual measurement of a foundationÕs impact by establishing clear goals, examining relevant data and assessing progress against desired outcomes in two broad sections: 1) Program Impact, with specific measures and indicators for context, outcomes, and results, learning and refinement; and 2) Institutional Effectiveness, with specific measures and indicators for leadership, constituent feedback, and finance and organization.

Best Practice

Service

Foundation Scorecard

The Scorecard is a method for assessing a foundation's program impact, program development, customer service, and human/financial capital. It uses performance indicators (determined by the impact framework) and commissions surveys to find out what grantees think of the Foundation, what experts think the FoundationÕs impact is, and what the staff considers to be the FoundationÕs strong and weak points.

Best Practice

Service

Foundations of Success Guideline for Effective Evaluation

This is a best practice for monitoring and evaluating systems focused on adaptive management (obtaining the information needed to manage projects) and impact assessments.

Best Practice

Service

Framework for Program Evaluation

This best practice offers a framework that outlines steps for program evaluation (engage stakeholders, describe the program, focus the evaluation design, gather credible evidence, justify conclusions, ensure use and share lessons learned) as well as standards (utility, feasibility, propriety, accuracy). While developed for public health programs, the steps and standards are generalizable to evaluation of any effort.

Best Practice

Service

GiveWell Method

This is a method that GiveWell employs to identify top charities working towards a particular goal through scanning public tax records, inviting a subset of charities to fill out a survey to provide more information, and rating those charities. It's focused on providing transparency to evaluation.

Best Practice

Service

Global Impact Investing Ratings System

Powered by the B Impact Ratings System, this tool assesses the social and environmental impact of companies and investment portfolios. It provides ratings similar to Morningstar investment ratings or S&P credit ratings. The Company Impact Rating is an aggregate numerical score and star-rating for individual companies built-up from their ratings in five stakeholder categories (environment, community, employees, consumers/products, and governance/ leadership) and fifteen sub-categories. The Portfolio Impact Rating is an aggregate numerical score and star-rating for an investment fund based on a rollup of the underlying Company Impact Ratings for the companies in its investment portfolio.

Impact Tool

Service

GreatNonprofits Reviews

GreatNonprofits offers a tool to find, review, and discuss nonprofits. Much like Amazon book reviews or other consumer review sites (Epinions, Zagats, TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.), the reviews and ratings are posted by people who have interacted with a nonprofit in some capacity and want to share their opinions about it.

Impact Tool

Service

GRI Reporting Framework

The GRI Reporting Framework offers a method to assess the sustainability of an organization's activities. This method can be applied to any type of organization of any size. GRI also offers Sector Supplements to respond to the unique needs of certain sectors, including but not limited to: the automotive, construction, electric utilities, media, mining & metals, and food processing sectors. Sustainability reports based on the GRI framework benchmark organizational performances with respect to laws, norms, codes, performance standards, and voluntary initiatives and compare organizational performance over time.

Best Practice

Service

GuideStar Analyst Reports

This tool provides reports detailing individual public charity financial performance. These reports reveal trends in income, assets, and expenses and provide the ability to analyze peer group comparisons according to geographic area and NTEE classification.

Impact Tool

Service

HAP Humanitarian Accountability and Quality Management Standard

The HAP Standard is a tool that seeks to measure: 1) Accountability and quality commitments made by an aid agency; 2) Quality management systemÐthe processes used by the aid agency to achieve the commitments made; 3) Quality of serviceÐas defined by disaster survivors, affected communities, partners, aid practitioners and other specified stakeholders. In order to achieve certification, an agency will demonstrate that it meets the 6 benchmarks and 19 requirements in the HAP Standard. These cover the three areas mentioned above, with specific attention to continual improvement. Designed for use by practitioners, researchers and donors, the Guide to the HAP Standard provides practical advice for improving the quality and accountability of humanitarian action. For agencies seeking HAP certification, it is an indispensible resource. The Additional Tools (in the Find Out More box) links directly to the Annex section of the Guide, which includes sample surveys, checklists, indicators, quality assurance tests, SWOT, and guidance on: conducting interviews, observations, focus groups; engaging communities; setting up feedback mechanisms; and holding lessons learned meetings.

Impact Tool

Service

HIP (Human Impact + Profit) Scorecard ª

The HIP (Human Impact + Profit) Scorecardª is a tool that demonstrates how increased human impact (human, social, and environmental results) drives higher revenue, lower costs, and tax benefits for organizations from all sectors - business, social, and government. It measures five categories: health, wealth, earth, equality, and trust. HIP also assesses five management practices that drive sustainable, profitable growth: vision, measures, decision-making, accountability, and financial alignment. Organizations are analyzed using a combination of company interviews, primary research and third-party databases. The resulting HIP rating integrates 3 dimensions: human impact, profit, and management practices - and can be used as a tool inside organizations, to benchmark performance, to evaluate competitive position, and to communicate the level of impact to stakeholders across all sectors.

Service

Interrupted Time Series Designs

This is an observational method that measures impact of education programs in cases where data before the implementation of the program is available. This method compares the data from before the implementation to the same data afterwards to tease out a trend in achievement.

Best Practice

Service

KIDS COUNT Self-Assessment Tool

This tool assesses organizational capacity and specifically helps grantees assess their work in data collection and analysis, communications and dissemination, policy analysis, community and constituency mobilization, and fund development/sustainability. The tool includes a rating section and related work plan for further improvement in each assessment area.

Impact Tool

Service

LBG Measuring and Benchmarking Corporate Community Investment

LBG International is a network of organizations that is based around a shared method for measuring and evaluating a corporationÕs community investment. The information on community contributions and outreach is collected online and analyzed so that participants can benchmark their efforts against regional and international benchmarks. The model adheres to standards set by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and the Corporate Responsibility Index (CRI).

Best Practice

Service

Learning for Results

This is a best practice in the form of an action guide for grantmakers that focuses on how foundations can create a deliberate culture of learning so that they are better equipped to improve decision-making, lead change and achieve better results.

Best Practice

Service

Listen Learn Lead

This is a report on phase 1 of the Change Agent Project, which offers best practices for grantmakers that focus on listening and engaging with individuals doing work on the ground. The Change Agent Project began by gathering input from grantmakers and nonprofits. Through nine focus groups across the country and 30 interviews with nonprofit leaders and grantmakers GEO asked two questions: Where can changed practice make the greatest difference? And who in philanthropy is leading change? From these conversations, GEO has identified the most promising opportunities for grantmakers to make changes that will contribute to nonprofit results. This report highlights those lessons.

Best Practice

Service

Making the Caseª

Making the Caseª is a tool developed by Women's Funding Network in response to an increasing demand among member funds for a tool to measure and evaluate social change. Funders invite grantees to use the online tool to enter information into a database that allows the funder to aggregate data and run reports. The tool is currently available to members of the WomenÕs Funding Network and Grantee Partners, and other organizations that wish to purchase access.

Impact Tool

Service

Measures of Success

This book presents a methodology for designing, managing, and measuring the impacts of community-oriented conservation and development projects. It provides guidance for designing a site-specific conceptual framework, setting goals, developing a monitoring plan, collecting and analyzing data, and implementing program modifications based on findings. It also includes four case studies that serve to illustrate the methodology in action.

Best Practice

Service

Measuring Impact Framework

This is a method that thoroughly outlines a framework for businesses to measure their impact on development goals in the regions where they operate. The framework is laid out broadly to meet the needs of organizations across different sectors anywhere in the world over time, allowing a variety of businesses to make key decisions that affect social impact.

Best Practice

Service

Methodology for Impact Analysis and Assessment (MIAA)

The Methodology for Impact Analysis and Assessment (MIAA) is a methodology outlined by Investing for Good in their recent publication, The Good Analyst. This framework offers a detailed series of indicators and scorecards that can be used to examine an organization and its impact. The three main areas covered are: 1. Mission Fulfillment; 2. Beneficiary Perspective; and 3. Wider Impact. The book goes on to explain the rationale behind social assessment and includes background on the increased presence of impact assessment among social ventures.

Best Practice

Service

Metrics Guide

This method allows organizations to build an outline for assessment of outreach, volunteer, or other social activities by creating a list of key performance indicators and outlining strategies for measurement, applied to a select investment or signature program, or to an entire portfolio of investments.

Best Practice

Service

Metrics that Matter

Transactions Ð Transformations Ð Translations: Metrics That Matter for Building, Scaling, and Funding Social Movements, a report from USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) with support from the Ford Foundation, provides an evaluative framework and key milestones to gauge movement building. This best practice aims to bridge the gap between the field of community organizing that relies on the one-on-one epiphanies of leaders and the growing philanthropic emphasis on evidence-based giving. The report stresses three main insights: any good set of movement metrics should capture quantity and quality, numbers and nuance, transactions and transformations; a movement is more than one organization; and metrics must be co-created, not imposed. The report also offers a set of recommendations to funders and the field, ranging from practical steps (like building a new toolbox of measures, improving the capacity to use them, and documenting innovation and experimentation) to more far-reaching suggestions about leadership development, the connection of policy outcomes with broader social change, and the need to generate movement-level measures.

Best Practice

Service

MicroRate

This tool is a social rating that measures the level of social return from an investment in a microfinance institution (MFI). The rating allows investors to compare MFIs from a social point of view. MicroRate evaluates the MFIÕs social results and social commitment within the context of its country or region. The first component Ð social results Ð evaluates the MFIÕs capacity, efficiency, and consistency in achieving its social mission by considering depth and diversity of services; cost, efficiency, and sustainability; and institutional responsibility. The second component Ð social commitment Ð assesses the MFIÕs focus and the chances of potential deviation from the social mission by examining the MFIÕs mission, communication, management, strategic planning, monitoring, client protection, customer service, recruitment and training, and incentive system. After analyzing these two components, MicroRate arrives at a social rating grade.

Impact Tool

Service

Monitoring & Evaluation Toolkit

This guide outlines a methodology for setting up and using a monitoring and evaluation system for a project or an organisation. It clarifies what monitoring and evaluation are, how you plan to do them, how you design a system that helps you monitor and an evaluation process that brings it all together usefully. It looks at how you collect the information you need and then how you save yourself from drowning in data by analysing the information in a relatively straightforward way. Finally it raises, and attempts to address, some of the issues to do with taking action on the basis of what you have learned. It also includes a case study, worksheets, and glossary of terms.

Best Practice

Service

Multidimensional Assessment Process (MAP)

Multidimensional Assessment Process (MAP) is a tool that provides foundations with an integrated assessment of performance based on comparative data collected from a variety of different sources, including grantees, declined applicants, foundation staff, and foundation board members. The MAP assimilates results and data from all of CEPÕs assessment tools into key findings, implications, and recommended action steps for improved foundation performance.

Service

Organization Report

This tool is a report that provides information that social impact investors can use to determine whether the investment opportunity is a good match for their personal interests, where specifically they may be able to add value both with money and in-kind resources, and how an investment may result in increased social impact. It includes a review of the administration and management of the organization, a description of what the organization does (programs) and what it is achieving (impact), an analysis of differentiating key strengths, an assessment of challenges and how they can be addressed, and recommendations on improvements the organization could make to increase scale and impact.

Impact Tool

Service

Outcome Mapping

Outcome Mapping offers a methodology that can be used to create planning, monitoring, and evaluation mechanisms enabling organizations to document, learn from, and report on their achievements. It is designed to assist in understanding an organization's results, while recognizing that contributions by other actors are essential to achieving the kinds of sustainable, large-scale improvements in human and ecological well-being toward which the organization is working. The innovations introduced in Outcome Mapping provide ways of overcoming some of the barriers to learning faced by evaluators and development partners. Attribution and measuring downstream results are dealt with through a more direct focus on transformations in the actions of the main actors. The methodology has also shown promise for across-portfolio learning in that it facilitates standardization of indicators without losing the richness in each case's story thus combining qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Service

Outcome-Based Evaluation

Outcome-based evaluation is a systematic method for assessing the extent to which a program has achieved its intended results.Ê It answers the key questions:Ê Òhow has a program made a difference?Ó and Òhow are the lives of program participants better as a result of the program?Ó.Ê Outcome-based evaluation can help provide information that helps organizations and programs report back to their key audiences, improve program quality, make decisions about resource allocation and communicate about results.

Best Practice

Service

Outcomes and Impact Frameworks

Based on research by The Center for What Works and the Urban Institute, this method delineates the outcomes that should be measured by an organization in a particular sector. The Outcomes Framework Browser allows users to navigate through the 14 program areas and browse their respective outcomes and indicators. Once you choose a program area of interest, or the more general common outcomes taxonomy, the screen will display a program description, an Outcomes Sequence Chart for that program area, and links to the program outcomes so you can view the outcome indicators. The common outcomes are thematically classified as knowledge/learning/attitude (e.g., skills, attitude, readiness), behavior (incidence of bad behavior, incidence of desirable activity, maintenance of new behavior), condition/status (e.g., participant social status, economic condition, health condition). The Impact Measurement Framework allows users to define their mission/program impact statement and then choose up to three outcomes most relevant to that statement. Once the key outcomes are identified, users choose the measureable indicators of success. This is an ongoing effort, which continues to expand to additional sectors.

Best Practice

Service

Programme Accountability and Learning System (PALS)

This method provides a framework that guides Plan staff in their planning, monitoring, and evaluation at the program country level. PALS is described in four key stages: (1) Participatory Situation Analysis from a child rights perspective; (2) Strategic and Programme Planning; (3) Programme implementation through projects (4) Programme monitoring, evaluation and research. Enabling staff in program countries to assess their Child Centered Community Development (CCCD) approach, this system allows for local circumstance and flexibility.

Best Practice

Service

Pulse

Pulse (aka Portfolio Data Management System, PDMS) is a proprietary online tool that allows the investor to track a consistent set of core quantitative financial, operational and social metrics for each portfolio company. It creates and tracks customized metrics for individual companies and qualitatively rates company management using a standardized capabilities assessment of six areas: alignment with the investor's mission, financial sustainability, potential for scale, potential for social impact, management capability, and business model effectiveness.

Impact Tool

Service

SOCIAL

The result is a detailed social audit report for the institution and a social scorecard.

ACCION developed the SOCIAL tool in 2003, and tested it out at four partner institutions. The methodology was quite labor intensive (2 staff people at the MFI for a week) and therefore it was made available for public use, but ACCION does not offer this assessment among the services available through its technical assistance packages. ACCION has also developed a set of consumer protection (the baseline for social performance) measurement tools that enable microfinance institutions to evaluate themselves using the framework of the Principles of Client Protection and a checklist of key indicators.

Best Practice

Service

Social Audit

This tool is used as part of the audit services provided by the Social Audit Network. A Social Audit can be conducted at one of three levels, including a self-audit option. The audit uses social accounting to determine that an organisationÕs claims can be credible (proved) and used to demonstrate organisational development (improvement). Social accounting is the process of collecting information about the activities an organisation carries out which affect its stakeholders. These activities may be intended ÔoutputsÕ or just the day to day internal operations. Organisations' impact can be measured in three ways: social, environmental and financial. Financial reporting has been in use for hundreds of years and can be used to both show what has happened and as a planning tool. Social accounting enables this process to be carried out for social and environmental outputs. See the manual for more on methodology and links to ready-to-use materials.

Impact Tool

Service

Social Impact Assessment

This is a best practice that provides the following guidelines a) conceptual: funders and grantees should align goals, assessment tools, and best practices b) operational: grantees and investors should acknowledge evaluation expenses as part of the cost of doing business, invest in measurement systems and tools, and develop examples of proven impact c) structural: each field and subfield should explore a range of possible outcome goals and best practices for measurement d) practical: a commitment to outcomes assessment can be a fundamental part of the management structure and organizational culture among funders and nonprofits.

Service

Social IMPact Measurement for Local Economies (SIMPLE)

The SIMPLE approach to social impact assessment is a methodology developed by Social Enterprise London (SEL) in conjunction with University of Brighton. It combines internal strategic review with outcomes based assessment to help managers of socially motivated businesses to visualize where and how they make positive contributions to society. Following a two-day training, users are equipped to select appropriate measures with which to collect quantifiable data and have received guidance on how to use that data to put their efforts into the broader context. By using a framework such as SIMPLE, it is possible to identify what evidence of change needs to be collected in order to illustrate the social benefits that the work of the organization creates.

Best Practice

Service

Social Impact Tracker

Social Impact Tracker Online allows you to record and share your contacts and activities; monitor and report on engagement and participation; capture attendance; maintain session records for group-based and one-to-one activities and more. It allows you to capture and report on both quantitative and qualitative data. It is an efficient method of providing supporting documentation to funders, management and other key stakeholders.

Impact Tool

Service

Social Investment Risk Assessment (SIRA)

This tool is a questionnaire designed to assess the likelihood that a nonprofit social or human services agency will deliver measurable social value. The information developed with this tool is intended to be a proxy to help those social investors who want to see measurable good result from their allocation of funds to such organizations. The tool identifies three performance domains - tactical data use, strategic data use, and program value - that together define the likelihood of social value of an agency's work with two indicators for each domain: data integrity indicator and outcomes focus indicator, making essential adjustments indicator and relating staff efforts to outcomes indicator, and capacity to deliver program/services with fidelity indicator and program impact data indicator. This tool was authored by David Hunter, with assistance from Ingvild Bjornvold and Marie Louise Refsgaard.

Impact Tool

Service

Social Rating

Organizations provide M-CRIL with annual reports and portfolio information. M-CRIL staff then conducts interviews with a subset of board members, managers and staff. The team visits 2-3 branches for interviews with loan officers and a random sample of clients. Client interviews acquire data in four areas: 1) clientsÕ awareness about financial products, including knowledge of the interest rate they are charged on loans and the rate paid on their savings, 2) clientsÕ access to capital, 3) enterprise-level information including the enterprisesÕ industry sector and whether employees are non-family members, 4) and poverty assessment information.

Impact Tool

Service

SPEAK (Strategic Planning, Evaluation and Knowledge Networking)

This system is a tool which offers organizations and projects the capacity to self-evaluate, leading to a comprehensive understanding of the work, outputs and impacts of the organizations, and the facility to integreate these new understands with improved strategic and work planning.

Impact Tool

Service

Spider Diagram for Capacity Building Advocacy

This tool assesses organizational capacity and specifically measures advocacy competency on a) ability to manage and monitor advocacy b) ability to carry out research and policy analysis, including gender analysis of policies c) ability to create and support networks and coalitions d) ability to carry out PR work (meetings, briefings, talks), d) media and communications work e) lobbying work f) mobilization of members of the public (letter writing, demonstrations, direct action, etc.).

Impact Tool

Service

SROI Framework

It defines four major stages: Planning, Implementation, Reporting and Embedding, and the key questions and choices to be addressed at each step. Planning involves determining the goals for the analysis, its scope, the key stakeholders affected by the entity to be analyzed, the entityÕs impact value chain, sources of data of information to be gathered, and a resource plan for the analysis. Implementation involves collection of data and supporting outcomes and base case evidence, as well as a calculation of social cash flows for outcomes describable in monetary terms, and a net present value calculation of these to arrive at an ROI ratio. Reporting includes making transparent the scope of the analysis and sources to facilitate verification and replication. Embedding includes specifying who is responsible for ongoing maintenance of data collection and analysis. The SROI framework does not include data management tools.

Best Practice

Service

SROI Lite

This is a method for measuring social impact by asking enterprise managers to define the single most important output they create and the unit cost of that output and to calculate how much is spent for every successful output created.

Best Practice

Service

SROI Toolkit

SVT first works with the client to define one or more specific measurable "addressable impacts," identifying and involving key stakeholders. Next, indicators of this impact are defined and tracked. SVT also collects base case and outcome data from experts and secondary research sources, and customizes an analytical model that associates the organization's regularly collected data with impact results. This feeds into the SROI Dashboard that shows progress toward impact.

Best Practice

Service

Staff Perception Report (SPR)

The Staff Perception Report (SPR) is a tool that explores foundation staff membersÕ perceptions of foundation effectiveness and job satisfaction on a comparative basis. The SPR is based on a survey specific to foundations that includes questions related to staff membersÕ impressions of their role in philanthropy, satisfaction with their jobs, their foundationÕs impact, and opportunities for foundation improvement. Participating foundations have the opportunity to add a small number of questions specific to each foundationÕs needs. In addition to providing participating foundations with comparative data, the staff surveys will help create a broad data set that CEP will use to report on practices and trends in the field.

Impact Tool

Service

Stakeholder Assessment Report (STAR)

It is based on a survey specific to foundation stakeholders and covers a variety of topics, from funder communications and resources to impact and effectiveness.

Service

Steps Program Evaluation

The Healthy Communities (formerly known as Steps) program evaluation page offers best practices for documenting program implementation, determining progress towards goals, and identifying areas for improvement. These communities address the burden of chronic diseases by implementing activities that help people to be more physically active, eat a healthy diet, stop using tobacco and better manage their diabetes and asthma. At the center of their evaluation strategy are the Core Performance Measures. Over the course of two years, stakeholders identified and agreed upon 18 measures and 44 related indicators; each reflects a critical component of Steps activities. The Core Performance Measures provide information about what and how results are achieved, reflect the best-possible science and practice-wisdom relevant to Steps communities, and take into account the practicalities of data collection at the community level.

Best Practice

Service

STEPS Toolkit

It takes program evaluators through the process of defining the problem, outlining objectives, choosing indicators, collecting and analyzing data, and using the findings. The STEPS toolkit includes: 8 e-learning modules; an appendix with pre-existing Indicators; 3 case examples; downloadable worksheets, including causal pathway and logical framework; group exercises and more.

Best Practice

Service

The B Impact Ratings System

The B Impact Ratings System is a dynamic assessment tool measuring a company's social and environmental impact. It is comprised of two parts: the B Impact Assessment and the B Impact Report. The B Impact Assessment is a free, web-based tool designed to be comprehensive yet simple enough for small and medium sized businesses (<$1 Billion) to complete within 60-90 minutes. It is comprised of 60-200 questions divided into five Impact Areas that provide a holistic view of a companyÕs business: Leadership, Employees, Consumers, Community, and Environment. Each of these Categories is further sub-divided into Goals, fifteen total. The number of questions and weightings are based upon the size and industry sector of a company. The B Impact Report is the simple, one-page report that a company receives after completing the B Impact Assessment. The B Impact Report is designed to make it easy; 1) for consumers, investors, and institutions to make purpose driven consumption, investment, and purchasing decisions; and 2) for entrepreneurs to manage their companiesÕ social and environmental performance. Oversight of the B Impact Ratings System is the responsibility of B LabÕs Standards Advisory Council, an independent committee of nine members, each respected in the field for their wisdom and each with deep industry or stakeholder expertise. The B Impact Ratings System is used to both certify B Corporations and generate GIIRS ratings.

Impact Tool

Service

The FINCA Client Assessment Tool (FCAT)

The FCAT is an open source tool in the form of a 40 minute survey that measures internationally comparable variables of microfinance clients social well-being. The methodology utilizes a "two stage cluster sampling approach" to comprehensively survey clients regarding income sources and dependents, monthly household expenditures, daily per capita expenditures and poverty levels that collectively document expenditures on the six social metrics: household food security, health care, housing, education, empowerment, and social capital. Client responses are directly entered into PDA devices, which facilitate reliable data gathering and analysis.

Impact Tool

Service

The Harvard Analytical Framework

It aims to demonstrate that there is an economic rationale for investing in women as well as men, to assist planners to design more efficient projects and improve overall productivity, to emphasize the importance of better information as the basis for meeting the efficiency/equity goal, and to map the work of men and women in the community and highlight the key differences. It includes a matrix for collecting data at the community and household level. The framework also contains a series of key questions to ask at each stage of the project cycle: identification, design, implementation, and evaluation.

Best Practice

Service

The Shujog Impact Framework and Assessment

The Shujog Impact Framework and Assessment is a methodology for measuring and reporting the social and environmental impact of social enterprises. It first creates an impact framework that builds origanizational and financial accountability to attract investment capital and provides industry and sector benchmarks against which the social enterprise can showcase its performance. The subsequent impact assessment provides future impact milestone verification, measurement, and analysis of the data collected and impact realized. Shujog also offers a certification program for gold standard social enterprises that achieve a high impact assessment score, making them eligible to receive the Shujog Mark.

Best Practice

Service

Theory of Change Community

At this site you'll find, among other things: 1) When TOC can help you and how (planning, re-grouping, evaluation, board meetings); 2) How it is best applied (should the scope of your engagement be a day, a month, or a year?); 3) How TOC can be the basis for a major organizational shift towards focusing on outcomes and accountability, while remaining participatory and transparent; and 4) How TOC has been used recently in key topic areas such as social justice, womenÕs movements, international justice, youth development, structural racism and more. Additionally, the site features a FacilitatorÕs Guide, published by the Aspen Roundtable, numerous PowerPoints showing the steps to creating TOCs, and finally, the Theory of Change Online, a web-based online drawing tool and database custom designed to create, store, and share Theories of Change. ActKnowledge also offers training and workshops to assist organizations in developing their TOCs.

Best Practice

Service

Trucost

Trucost is a tool for companies to see and manage their environmental impact. Trucost rates the efficiency of a company's operations and provides clients with an understanding of the financial risks to a company if it had to pay for its environmental impacts. A global input-output model is used to estimate the amount of resources a company uses to produce goods or services and the related level of pollutants.

Impact Tool

Service

Trustee Evaluation Toolkit

The toolkit explores brief case studies that show how foundation trustees are successfully employing different types of evaluation for a variety of purposes. In addition, it provides a self-assessment survey for foundation trustees, a framework for trustee conversations, a facilitator's guide, and a planning guide for foundation trustees to create a custom action plan for improving performance through evaluation.

Best Practice

Service

Understanding Software for Program Evaluation

It breaks program evaluation data collection, use, and reporting down into five discrete elements (central program data hub, auxiliary data systems, proactive data gathering, existing data gathering, and reporting/visualization) and delves into the tools used by various organization types for each category.

Best Practice

Service

Volunteering Impact Assessment Toolkit

It is designed to be simple and adaptable so that organizations can use it in ways that are most useful to them. The Toolkit contains a set of research methods or instruments to help organizations assess the impacts of volunteering on different stakeholders or parties. These include: questionnaires; focus group topic guides; volunteer diaries; and volunteer manager audit forms.

Impact Tool

Service

Volunteerism ROI Tracker

It allows users to analyze the value of volunteer activities and offers suggestions for improving their outputs and outcomes, as well as benchmarks for comparison.

Impact Tool

Service

Women's Empowerment Framework

LongweÕs framework is based on the concept of five different levels of equality (control, participation, conscientisation, access and welfare) across three levels of program effect (positive, neutral or negative impact). Expounding on this framework is LongweÕs 2002 essay, Spectacles for Seeing Gender in Project Evaluation, in which she provides a guide for looking at evaluation design, a project plan, evaluation questions, and a lens through which we can recognize and analyze gender issues, and see the process of womenÕs empowerment.

Best Practice