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