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Office of Community Services skip to primary page contentIncreasing the Capacity of Individuals, Families and Communities

Outcomes Measurement

Introduction | Getting Started

Measuring Outcomes Overview

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Although there are many uses for the information generated by outcome measurement, organizations often enter into it because they are required to do so. They are asked to be accountable for the use of their grantmaker’s funds. This includes foundations and grantmaking organizations such as United Ways, as well as federal, state or local governments.

In 1993, Congress enacted the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) to ensure that the Federal government focuses programs on performance. Federal departments are now required to assess the effectiveness of their programs. In 2001, the current Administration introduced a number of management reforms, including the Budget and Performance Integration initiative, which requires Federal agencies "to identify high quality outcome measures, accurately monitor the performance of programs, and begin integrating this presentation with associated cost"1. As a result of these efforts, Federal departments increasingly ask for outcome-related data in their reporting requirements. For example, recipients of Compassion Capital Fund (CCF) support are required by the Department of Health and Human Services to:

"Develop, with guidance from and in consultation with ACF, a plan within six months of receipt of award for working with sub-awardees to develop outcome measures and to evaluate the activities supported by the sub-awards made with Federal funds under this announcement."

CCF Program Announcement, 20032

In addition to meeting your program reporting requirements, outcome measurement serves other important needs. Everyone in your organization should understand what is going on in your program and what it is intended to achieve - frontline staff, management and board. Outcome measurement helps to clarify your understanding of your program. But the most important reason for undertaking the effort is to understand the impacts of your work on the people you serve. More important still is for you to use that information to improve the effectiveness of your efforts.

Every organization hopes to deliver quality services. Outcome measurement will help you understand whether or not you do. With the information you collect, you can determine which activities to continue and build upon and which you may need to change in order to improve the effectiveness of your program.

What Is Outcome Measurement?
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There are countless words used in the world of evaluation and a fair amount of confusion and debate about precisely what each word means. This guidebook uses the phrase "outcome measurement" to describe one approach to exploring the impacts or results of a program and to distinguish outcome measurement from more elaborate or complex types of evaluation.

Outcome measurement is "a systematic way to assess the extent to which a program has achieved its intended results. The main questions addressed are: What has changed in the lives of individuals, families, organizations or the community as a result of this program? Has this program made a difference? How are the lives of program participants better as a result of the program?" (The Evaluation Forum, 2000, p. 9)3

During the last 30 years or so, most of the reporting required of groups receiving government or charitable funds has focused on what staff do. How many people they serve. How many hours of service they deliver. Outcome measurement asks, and attempts to answer, the question, So what?

So what if you provide an organization with 10 hours of technical assistance on fundraising techniques? Is the organization better able to raise money? Do they?

So what if you train an organization on how to develop a strategic planning process? Can the organization effectively perform the steps involved? Do they?

So what if your staff work with five faith or community-based organizations on developing partnerships? Do those organizations actually follow-through and increase their collaboration efforts? Do those efforts results in new partnerships?

Outcome measurement is most commonly used in the not-for-profit world; a similar phrase, "performance measurement," is used more often in the business and government arenas. In essence, they mean the same thing.

"Compliance monitoring" is another phrase in use today, referring most often to the contractual arrangements made between an organization and its grantmaker on the use of funds. Compliance monitoring keeps records on what and how much service a program delivers, the clients it serves and how much money it expends in relation to what the organization agreed to with the funder. It may, but does not necessarily, include information on the outcomes of the program.

The term "evaluation" is used broadly to cover an entire range of activities, including studies where the steps undertaken can specifically and with more certainty show that the results the program achieves are attributable to it and not to other factors. A typical definition of program evaluation reads: "the systematic application of social research procedures for assessing the conceptualization, design, implementation and utility of health or social interventions."4

Evaluation research focuses on "causation," proving that the activities provided through the program are the reason why change occurred for the people receiving the service. This requires considerably more time and effort, and this is the basis for the distinction in this guidebook between outcome measurement and evaluation:

Outcome measurement will explore what your program provides, what its intended impacts are and whether or not it achieves them. It will not prove that the changes that take place are a result of your program.

People often get stuck in the outcome measurement process because of all the terminology. Is it an outcome, an accomplishment, an achievement or a result? Is it a goal or an objective? Is it an indicator or a performance measure? Some people see goals and objectives as interchangeable; others see outcomes and objectives as the same.

To keep it simple, this guidebook uses three terms consistently.

  • Goal: broad statement of the ultimate aims of a program
  • Outcome: the changes in the lives of individuals, families, organizations or the community as a result of the program
  • Indicator: the specific, measurable information collected to track whether an outcome has actually occurred

You should not let semantics stop you from moving ahead with your outcome measurement work. This guidebook uses the term "outcome measurement" but also may use the words "evaluate" or "evaluation" to cover the broad concept of exploring the changes that take place as a result of a program. The glossary in the Appendix clarifies many of the terms used frequently in outcome measurement and evaluation work. You likely will need to "translate" some of the terms you encounter.

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Introduction | Getting Started