Last Updated: Tuesday, 29 September 2009
This report provides a view of the state of outcome measurement as implemented in a number of private
nonprofit service organizations engaged in outcome measurement. It provides examples of procedures that some
organizations have been able to implement and use for outcome measurement. Managers, leaders, and staffs of nonprofit service organizations of all kinds are the primary audience for this report. The research community is a secondary audience.
Nonprofit organizations are increasingly being pressed to measure and report their outcomes regularly to funders and
other constituents. Service organizations are increasingly recognizing that they need some form of regular feedback on
their outcomes to help them improve their services. Outcome measurement is a process by which nonprofit organizationsan help meet these needs. An outcome describes a specific desirable result or quality of an organization’s services. (For example, an outcome relevant to an organization whose mission is to help keep teenagers in school would be a youth’s completion of high school, rather than dropping out.) Outcome measurement involves the identification of outcomes; development of appropriate outcome indicators and data collection procedures; data analysis to better understand organization achievements; and user-friendly, regular reporting of the findings.
Outcome measurement is new to most private nonprofit organizations.Nonprofit organizations are more often familiar
with monitoring and reporting such information as the number of clients served, the quantity of services, programs,
or activities provided, the number of volunteers or volunteer hours contributed, and the amount of donations received.
These are important data, but they do not help nonprofit managers or constituents understand how well they are helping their clients; that is, such statistics provide administrative information about programs, but not about the program’s results. For program improvement, further examination of the reasons for good or poor results is needed.
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Outcomes.pdf
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