I love surveys. I love designing them and completing them. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve filled out satisfaction and feedback surveys every time I’ve been asked. My love of surveys has won/earned me free meals and theater tickets, and discounts or refunds on all kinds of products and services. I love surveys! I’ve[…]
This is our third and final post in this series. We believe outcome statements should be meaningful, measurable, and manageable, and we recommend that organizations evaluate their outcomes against those criteria in that order, because each serves as a more narrow filter than the one before. The universe of meaningful outcomes is big, complex, abstract,[…]
We believe outcome statements should be meaningful, measurable, and manageable. This is our second post in this series, examining the second M. Organizations often struggle to identify outcomes that are both meaningful and measurable. But, because they are required to measure their outcomes, they sacrifice meaningfulness and just count what is easy to count. Sound[…]
Outcome statements should be . . . We believe outcome statements should be meaningful, measurable, and manageable. If an outcome statement cannot meet all three of those criteria, we don’t recommend it. Further, as you brainstorm possible outcomes, they should be evaluated against those criteria, in that order. Oftentimes, organizations arrive at the outcomes they[…]
Measuring outcomes is difficult. I’ve written about this before (here). However, there are many ways that nonprofits make life even harder for themselves than it has to be. You’re probably familiar with many of them: The grant-writer works in isolation and promises outcomes that the program cannot measure and/or achieve. Outcomes are written so broadly,[…]
Evaluation, performance management, project management, and quality improvement (everything I do) all have at least one thing in common. They start with the end in mind, articulating goals. Before anything else, they ask what the end game is. For example: Evaluation – What do you want to learn from this evaluation? How do you want[…]
As promised in our October newsletter (click here to subscribe), Insight Partners has some exciting things planned for our third year, including this blog series by guest blogger Julia Pickup, MSW, LCSW. Julia is a highly skilled therapist, clinical supervisor, instructor, and program director. She thrives on developing clinicians to reach their full potential, building team[…]
There’s one thing I love most about the internet – the ability to enter a phrase into a search box that describes a problem that you think is nameless, ill-defined, and without a clear solution and then discover through pages of search results that: (1) it has a name, (2) you aren’t the only one[…]
Many of us do work that is inherently and inarguably valuable. There is an intuitive and logical connection between the work we do and some larger, later good. Yet our actual, direct impact is hard to define or know. For years, these programs have been funded based on their face value, but many funders now[…]
Hi, my name is Sarah, and I love taking surveys. It’s true. Ever since I was a kid. By filling out surveys and comment cards, I’ve won theater tickets, hotel rooms, and free meals. I believe in the value of feedback! So, it irks me when I see poorly designed surveys because they waste time,[…]