Examiner.

net (Independence, MO)

Posted Aug 13, 2011 @ 12:26 AM

By Matthew Bolton Special to The Examiner

Matthew Bolton, from Independence, holds dual U.S. and British citizenship. He is a development worker overseas. Reach him at notlobman@yahoo.com

Social change is not always easy to measure Washington, DC Results, indicators, metrics, evaluation, accountability, transparency, costbenefit analysis these seemed to be the buzzwords this week as more than 1,000 international aid agency representatives gathered in the nations capital to discuss the theme of Investing in Common Solutions to the worlds most pressing problems. The conference, organized by Interaction, a coalition of American non-profits involved in global humanitarian and development, attracted a diverse set of aid agencies, including those with local Independence connections, like Outreach International. Nobel laureate Mohammed Yunus, inventor of the concept of microfinance, was the keynote speaker. It is a difficult time for charities. They face the prospect of tighter budgets as unsteady markets limit philanthropists generosity and partisan wrangling threatens government funding. They also struggle to overcome a growing general public mistrust of institutions. Within this climate of economic and political challenges, aid agencies are innovating new ways to demonstrate the impact of their work. Donors are demanding more evidence of effectiveness and increasingly picking winners rather than providing long-term investment in programs that require slow incubation. In much of my work within the aid sector, I have advocated for more rigorous evaluation of charitable work. Too often, philanthropic organizations hide behind their good intentions and fail to think carefully about what they are trying to achieve and whether they are succeeding. There is a tendency to imbue charitable work with a kind of magic that is inspiring, lifechanging and uplifting but is immune to careful assessment. This is misguided and a recipe for repeated mistakes and poorly devised programs. A non-profit organization operating without a clear strategy for managing to outcomes is akin to a ship at sea sailing without a charted course, yet hoping to miraculously reach its destination, argues a new PBS documentary Saving Philanthropy: Resources to Results, previewed at the Interaction conference. However, I believe that donors and charities must also be careful not to tout measurement and evaluation as the latest magic bullet that is itself above scrutiny. One conference panelist joked about the need to submit the trend of doing cost-benefit

analyses of aid projects to its own cost-benefit analysis, to see whether it was worth the resources consumed. Society is highly complex and it can be difficult to identify the impact of an institutions work within the myriad other political, economic, cultural, social and environmental factors. I have seen many charities become fixated on statistics that are easy to measure like money dispersed, people served, resources distributed rather than those that indicate lasting, sustainable social change. This can distract organizations from valuable work that is not easily quantifiable or that can take many years to create visible, measurable change. Changing social attitudes, challenging prejudice, correcting public misperceptions, organizing grassroots institutions, are all difficult to represent neatly in a colorful bar chart. Understanding long-term community change often requires more fine-grained, nuanced, complex analysis. A lengthy, text-heavy report tracing the processes of social transformation may not be fun to read, but it may more effectively convey the intricate, slow, mundane activities that made a real difference. Systematic and careful evaluation of nonprofit work is important to establish accountability both to supporters and beneficiaries, as well as improve organizational learning and practice. However, thoughtfulness, honest reflection and wisdom are more important, and more elusive, than any easily quantifiable metric or flashy illustration. Unfortunately, many individual donors do not take the time to really understand and learn about the philanthropic efforts they support and are easily swayed by charismatic and emotional stories, or, in the opposite direction, by negative press. Indeed, some donors seem to believe, implicitly at least, that if a statistic is easy to understand or a graph is visually engaging, it represents something significant. I know that you readers are deeply committed people who give generously to philanthropic efforts locally, nationally and globally. Of this you can feel justly proud. But to maximize the impact you have, consider also spending time researching and learning about the places, people and organizations you support, pushing beyond slick statistics and compelling photos to learn about the nitty gritty of long-term social change.
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