ResultsLab: How to increase nonprofit sustainability

Dear Reader,

In 2018 I helped develop The Evidence Continuum (see figure below in resources) as a member of the Colorado Evidence-Based Policy Collaborative. This group is comprised of professionals from the nonprofit, private, and public sectors who are committed to using the best available evidence to improve program delivery and results for our communities.

The Evidence Continuum identifies five steps to developing an evidence-based and proven program. While there is a lot of interest in attaining causal evidence and building a proven program, achieving that level of evidence can be burdensome, and may not be the right focus for all organizations. However, to more effectively drive impact, it’s important for all organizations to develop and practice the skills needed to move through step three. As a sector, it’s in these first three steps that we should be investing in organizations in order to improve program efficiencies and better meet the needs of our communities. Investing in smaller, minority-led nonprofits is especially important as they often provide solutions to issues that are rooted in a deeper understanding of the lived experience of the communities they serve. These organizations have historically been under-resourced and denied the same level of capacity building support as some of their larger, white-led counterparts.

So how might we start to strengthen data capacity and support organizations to develop strong practices in the initial steps of The Evidence Continuum? We can begin by reflecting on these five questions:

Are you able to clearly articulate your desired outcomes and do you have a way to measure/track progress towards these outcomes?
Do you have a visual that highlights your Impact Strategy or Theory of Change that can be used for program management, marketing and fundraising support?
Do you feel you’ve identified the right learning questions to drive your program impact, and the right data to track progress?
To what extent does your team use this data for continuous improvement? Or to drive program effectiveness and decision-making?
What is currently working and what’s not as it relates to your data practice?

Answering these questions will help identify where organizations are in their data journey and where to go next to drive their data practice forward.

If you are interested in a deeper dive, we are launching a capacity building cohort this fall that will propel organizations progress to step three of The Evidence Continuum. We are excited for this work given the results and feedback from our past Impact Accelerator cohorts. We have also refined our approach to ensure it better meets the needs of smaller organizations with limited resources in response to previous client feedback and what we’ve been hearing from the sector as a whole.

We’d love to support your data and impact journey. If you are interested, sign-up for our Impact Accelerator waitlist here.

If you are a funder interested in supporting nonprofits to build their data practice, let’s connect! We have nonprofits interested and currently seeking funding. Contact jaclyn.sablosky@resultslab.org to see how we can partner.

READING

A New Normal for Evidence Building: Five Tips for Funders: “Increasingly, nonprofits see evidence building and learning as core to their work, but the funding markets are not keeping pace.”
Supporting Grantee Capacity: Strengthening Effectiveness Together: Resource, with examples and action steps, that shares various strategies for capacity building, and how funders and grantees can strengthen organizations together.
Funding the Frontlines: The Value of Supporting Grassroots Organizing: “...funding, if available, primarily supports large, high-profile NGOs, whereas those organizing at the community level do not have nearly enough access to resources.”
For Marginalized Groups, Being Studied Can Be a Burden: “...constant questioning—with no consideration for how the responses might be used to benefit the community —imposes an undue burden on the members’ time and energy.”