Executing Your Strategic Plan: Using Performance Measurement for Impact
Often, the impetus for engaging in performance measurement comes from a sense of pressure from funder requirements or inquiries from the board of directors. But performance measurement can have its biggest benefits when it’s used for learning and making better decisions — it can deepen your organization’s impact.
Moreover, with so many nonprofits facing reduced resources, measuring your impact is as important as ever to communicate the value of your organization’s work to funders and the communities you serve. In a study of nonprofit executives, 71% surveyed said they consider outcome measurement important, but only 20% reported that they believe they are very effective at demonstrating outcomes. There are opportunities for closing this gap.
We recommend these tips for implementing practical and meaningful strategic plan performance measurement practices:
Focus on the key outcomes that demonstrate success toward your strategic plan goals, intended impact, and theory of change. Often, leaders can feel overwhelmed thinking of all the things you could measure, but you don’t need to measure everything. A few high-quality metrics are more valuable than mountains of data, or data that isn’t collected consistently because it’s too burdensome for staff to manage.
Collect data that fits with your organization’s resources and build data collection into your daily processes. Use a balance of qualitative and quantitative data. Consider surveys with clients and other constituents, external data about the landscape collected by other sources, and other organizational data that may be recorded already for other purposes.
Engage those most impacted, including direct service staff and clients, as partners in designing and implementing your measurement processes. This not only helps to embed the measurement process into daily operations and with those who will be executing the processes, but also serves to vet these processes with the people who understand the day-to-day work best and who benefit from your organization’s day-to-day work.
Block out time for teams to meet and review data findings and facilitate learning conversations. Ask yourselves, how can we use what we’ve learned to improve our work? Then, share what you are learning with your clients, staff, board, funders, and other constituents. This way, your performance measurement also becomes part of your team-building, constituent engagement, learning, and strengthening of operations and programs, and reaches all functions across your organization.
Encouraging our clients to approach performance measurements in these ways builds on Lyons-Newman Consulting’s community organizing approach to strategic planning. Our clients engage their constituents as partners and co-creators throughout the strategic planning process and also in measuring strategic plan performance, which sets a foundation for learning to happen across their organization. It also creates a sense of ownership of the organization’s successes, and also of any adjustments needed to achieve strategic plan goals.
Even though performance measurement can be daunting at first, doing it is a valuable part of implementing your strategic plan, making good decisions, and adapting to change so you can make the biggest impact toward your mission.