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Current nonprofit sector research and recommendations for effective day-to-day practice from ASU faculty, staff, students, and the nonprofit and philanthropic community.
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In a society fundamentally rooted in capitalism, how can nonprofits argue their worth when their work cannot be translated into a monetary sum?
Manyhave focusedon uncovering new ways of gathering this data and new metrics for analyzing it. Now the discussion is shifting to moving beyond outputs (e.g. number of people served) to impacts (e.g. what difference it made in those people’s lives and the community as a whole). Social impact models seek to move beyond basic performance measures to better understand and illustrate what has been accomplished and, more importantly, what it meant. When faced with shorter attention spans and more critical oversight in today’s fundraising landscape, having numbers that speak to the value of your organization can give you an important edge.
Chloe Silva is a graduate of the Social Justice and Human Rights Master of Arts program at Arizona State University (ASU), where she studied critical theory and Indigenous self-determination. Prior to attending ASU, she worked for Teach For America * Memphis. Currently, she serves as the Program Coordinator for the ASU Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation and spends the weekends exploring the desert with her dog.
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Like this article? Get another! Read Kayla McKinney's, "Jungle of Trolls: Coping with Social Media Disasters, Controversies, and Blunders." |
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