The Hard Virtues of ‘Soft’ Program Measurement
This essay was originally published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
". . . organizations that gather feedback from direct participants and their communities to continuously improve their programs and policies are finding that surveys, interviews, and focus groups can do more than surface new ways to interpret quantitative findings and explain the why and how.”
How Listening to Constituents Can Lead To Systems Change
This essay was originally published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
"Listening to participants allows nonprofits to go beyond the “what” of change to the “how and why,” the first step toward changing unjust systems."
Building Equitable Evidence of Social Impact
This collaborative research, led by Pace Center for Girls, exemplifies the wide-ranging benefits of a holistic approach to measurement that blends participatory measures with empirical data and uncovers links to impact no experimental method alone could. The study draws on the experience of 15 nonprofits that engage participants as partners in evaluation and reveals benefits, including building equity across organizations and resilience against crises.
“ [Nonprofits] that had built capacity for participatory evaluation found that their cultures supported quick, smart shifts to new and virtual ways of listening to, and working with, participants to respond to trauma and injustice.”
