How do we measure the success and impact of our giving?
“It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than it is to earn it in the first place.”- Andrew Carnegie, Scots American industrialist and philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie’s well know quote is something that many philanthropists today would agree on. There is also the emerging trend that increasingly people are judged not on how they made their money but how they spend it!
This and the combined fact that charities (or non-governmental organisations) are often seen as less efficient than businesses, the wish of the “New Philanthropist” to transfer their skills to the charity sector (myself fairly guilty), and the risk adversity of many donors, means that donors are now looking for new ways of measuring results and social-return-on-investments (SROI). Rightly so perhaps – it is their investment after all. The trick is – how do we measure the success and impact of our giving?
It is certainly not straight forward. Business skills definitely need to be translated into the charity environment. Also, there is a quest for quick measurable results from a sector that might not be able, prepared or indeed interested in producing these measurements. Moreover, there are charity advisers and websites that disagree on whether to measure accountability and transparency, impact only, or SROI, etc. – further confusing the issue.
Based on my varied experience of being a philanthropist, business management consultant, charity trustee and director, and economist/institutional/financial /gender and socio-economist (yes the titles are confusing) on numerous international development assignments, my answer to how we measure the success and impact of our giving – must be – that there isn’t one … There is no one size fit all solution, method or “right” answer….
Yet – it is indeed possible to measure the impact and success of our given. The real quest is to find a tailored solution that fits both the requirements of the philanthropist and one that the beneficiary feels both happy about and is able to meet. That’s a formula that will work.
http://www.not-just-for-profit.com/
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