When it comes to evaluating your nonprofit’s impact, there are several areas you could focus on. For instance, you might be interested in the environmental impact of your programs or the economic impact of your interventions.
However, one key type of impact that many organizations choose to look at is social impact. UpMetrics defines social impact as “the effects your organization has on individual people, communities, and societal conditions or issues.”
With a people-first mindset guiding your impact measurement efforts, you can more effectively strengthen the relationships between your organization and its community. You can also gain the insights you need to strengthen your operations in areas like fundraising, communications, and mission delivery.
In this quick guide, we’ll explore four quick tips for measuring your nonprofit’s social impact so you can experience these benefits. If you want to learn more about how your nonprofit affects the people it works with, this is the guide for you. Let’s begin!
1. Define the objectives you want to achieve.
To successfully measure your social impact, you’ll need to establish an impact framework that can serve as the foundation for your approach.
To do this, define objectives that you want to measure your progress toward. These objectives are the smaller, bite-size goals that will get your organization closer to accomplishing its larger mission.
Let’s say your nonprofit is dedicated to alleviating food insecurity in your county. Here are some examples of objectives you might decide to include in your impact framework:
- Increase attendance at our weekly nutrition workshops
- Deliver more meal kits to families in need
- Build partnerships with local farmers and grocers
- Recruit more volunteers for our community garden program
After establishing your objectives, you’ll also need to decide on the key impact indicators (KIIs) that will help you track your progress toward accomplishing your objectives. KIIs are similar to key performance indicators (KPIs)—they’re measurable values that show your progress toward a goal.
Here are some examples that correspond to the objectives listed above (note that you can have more than one KII per objective):
- Number of attendees at each nutrition workshop
- Percentage of meal kits delivered successfully
- Number of touchpoints with each farmer or grocer we have/want a relationship with
- Number of completed online volunteer registration forms
2. Carefully collect data.
Next, you need to gather KII data to help you judge your progress toward your objectives. There are two types of data you should collect to understand the complete picture of your organization’s social impact:
- Quantitative data: This is any data that can be given a numerical value. A few examples include:
- Percentage of meal kits successfully delivered, dollar amount raised during a fundraising auction, volunteer retention rate
- Qualitative data: This data helps you better understand characteristics, behaviors, and experiences. Here are a few examples:
- Written case studies, interviews with beneficiaries, videos of volunteers at work
At first glance, quantitative data may sound like the most important type of data that your organization can collect to measure its impact. However, qualitative data adds color to your impact insights and helps to humanize the story of your work, which is why it’s vital to gather both types.
To collect data, turn to your existing data sources first. These might include your CRM or marketing platforms. Once you know what gaps you need to fill, you can collect additional data. You can also leverage publicly available data, such as academic research or government-curated information.
3. Analyze your data.
Once you have all of your data in one place, take a closer look at it and identify any patterns, trends, and changes that show progress (or challenges) in your journey toward accomplishing your objectives.
How you do this will depend on the type of data you’re working with:
- Quantitative data requires statistical analysis (the specific method needed will be determined by your KIIs).
- Qualitative data calls for thematic analysis, which is done by codifying data and then extracting common themes.
As you can well imagine, this is where impact measurement can get tricky for nonprofits, especially those who are new to the process or don’t have sophisticated, data-savvy experts on their teams.
If you’re in this situation, consider partnering with a data scientist who can handle data analysis for you. You can also invest in a dedicated impact measurement and management platform that takes care of the heavy lifting.
However you decide to analyze your data, remember to stay open-minded and think about the long term. You may feel like you’re only seeing incremental progress toward your goals or that your organization is facing several roadblocks to success. Maintaining perspective will help you make necessary adjustments to your operations, whether that means improving your internal culture or strengthening your programs, allowing you to stay on track to achieve what you want to accomplish.
4. Share your impact with your community.
After gathering and analyzing enough data, you should have useful insights into your organization’s social impact. Make good use of these insights within your organization by letting them guide decisions about improvements you can make to get closer to achieving your overarching mission.
However, you shouldn’t keep your impact insights to yourself! Share your impact data with your organization’s stakeholders—your donors, funders, partners, and other community members. Being transparent about your impact will strengthen the trust between you and your community, proving that the work you do is important and shining light on the areas where you need more support.
Many organizations create impact reports to communicate their insights. Whether your report is printed on paper or created in a digital format, ensure that it is engaging by providing a healthy mix of text and visuals. This will help make the information in the report more digestible and actionable.
In addition to reporting on your impact insights, make sure to provide information about how you collected and analyzed your data. Discussing your methodology will enhance the credibility of your report and assure stakeholders that your findings are valid.
Measuring your nonprofit’s social impact allows you to hone in on the long-lasting effects of your work on the people you serve. As you use the tips in this guide to begin your own impact measurement journey, remember to keep a long-term perspective. It may take a while for your organization to achieve its objectives, but every step forward is a win for your mission!
