Social Progress’s True Metric: Compared to What?
With a proper approach and clear benchmarks, program evaluation can yield unexpected insights and become a delightful learning experience.
Scaling Innovative ways nonprofits can increase their reach and social impact
Latest
Selecting the Right Growth Metrics: Fewer but Better
Nonprofits have near-limitless metrics they can measure, but the key to success is identifying, monitoring, and responding to the few that really matter.
Solving Big Social Problems by Thinking Small
Frugal, flexible, and inclusive “jugaad innovation” provides a compelling model for nonprofits looking for innovative solutions to significant problems.
Three Questions That Transformed a Movement
Achieving marriage equality in the United States took time, tough questions, and coordinated efforts across politics, strategy, and messaging.
From Scaling Impact to Impact at Scale
As nonprofits, NGOs, and funders increasingly seek innovative ways to address the total need around critical issues, new challenges, questions, and opportunities arise.
Most Popular
How Nonprofits Get Really Big
Since 1970, more than 200,000 nonprofits have opened in the U.S., but only 144 have reached $50 million in annual revenue. They got big by doing two things: They raised the bulk of their money from a single type of funder. And just as importantly, these nonprofits created professional organizations that were tailored to the needs of their primary funding sources.
Centering Equity in Collective Impact
A decade of applying the collective impact approach to address social problems has taught us that equity is central to the work.
The Adoption of Innovation
How do innovations move from the edges to the core of what an organization does? For maximum impact, innovations must cease to be innovative and become institutionalized and normalized.
Ten Reasons Not to Measure Impact—and What to Do Instead
Impact evaluations are an important tool for learning about effective solutions to social problems, but they are a good investment only in the right circumstances.
Scaling Impact
Scaling requires not only fidelity to core processes and programs, but also constant adjustments to local needs and resources.