From Our Brains to Yours

June 10th, 2010

Inputs, Outputs and Outcomes

Last week I gave a presentation on measuring advocacy – an elusive and difficult task. This week’s Three Things offers up the core of the approach I recommend: focus on inputs, outputs, and outcomes.

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June 9th, 2010

Measuring Advocacy is Hard

A more rigorous approach to measuring advocacy could produce more effective, efficient, and strategic advocacy programs. At the PdF10 conference, I presented on an approach to measuring advocacy.

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May 12th, 2010

Measuring Down the Wrong Path

measuring the wrong things has led very good people doing incredibly good work down wrong paths… paths that ultimately veer off from their goals.

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March 18th, 2010

Three Ways to Measure Social Media

If you’re trying to measure social media, or about to embark on a process to do so, it would behoove you to stop and consider the technique you’re applying before you get your answers.

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February 18th, 2010

Refocus to Change the World

Why do big online organizing efforts so often fail to win the day? A trio of ideas to guide the way toward more effective online advocacy.

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December 7th, 2009

How is [fill in the blank] helping my organization meet its mission?

2010 will be about figuring out what analytics mean, and how to apply them to measuring the results that matter for non-profits and advocacy efforts.

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December 3rd, 2009

Measure More than Inputs

What should organizations, coalitions, and the sector at large measure in the context of unrelenting complexity, widely dispersed responsibility, and, often, a virtual blackout when it comes to timely, reliable data?

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August 17th, 2009

Return on overhead investment

My very first post on this blog in January was a response to a post from Sasha Dichter about separating “program” expenses from “overhead” expenses.  The non-profit world generally looks down on high overhead relative to program expenses.  And program delivery is the key component for fulfilling the organization’s mission.  My may point was:

“I think [...]

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August 13th, 2009

Analyze No More!

At Englin Consulting, we’re lucky. We work with extraordinarily smart and talented people who bring those assets to bear to make the world a better place. We love our clients and the work we get to do with them.
One thing about working with extraordinarily smart people: we’re often helping them and their teams [...]

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August 6th, 2009

Measure Better

Thinking about evaluation inevitably leads to thinking about measurement: what can we measure that can form the basis for evaluating our efforts?
Ideally, we’d evaluate the impact of our efforts. Did our work change minds? Did it change policy? Did it raise money or volunteer hours? Did it feed hungry people (or improve [...]

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