Summary

We are an arts collective that runs workshops and gallery showings for children with disabilities in the suburbs of Washington D.C. Taught in a way that goes beyond traditional learning methods, our programs enable the children to express their creativity, and ultimately themselves, in a way that accelerates both cognitive and personal development. However, our program outcomes are difficult to monitor since they are based on each child`s creativity, confidence or ability. Compounding this, the new funders for our program had very specific monitoring requirements that relate to getting children into education and ultimately employment.

The Background

How can you be sure that the programs that you run at your nonprofit are accomplishing your goals as well as the goals of your funders? What if the benefits of your nonprofit are softer an difficult to quantify? You need to develop a testing and measurement program thats flexible and adaptable. This is one such case where a nonprofit found a new way to monitor hard data to measure outcomes and then persuaded their funder to adopt the new system.

The Solution

We developed a new monitoring method for this art program that started with a scoring system to measure each child`s confidence, communication skills, creativity and cooperation. We started with the children at zero in each category and allowed them to move up or down depending on their progress. Also, the children and teachers met at the end of each session to discuss successes and concerns. Testing went beyond the children as well. Parents were asked to complete feedback forms and attend review meetings. We also chose two children to track for in-depth assessment and case studies. Our funder recognized the need for this intense testing as it provided a more accurate picture of the program and its outcomes.

Lessons Learned

Everyone was impressed and delighted with our new assessment methods. In fact, our funder was able to justify ongoing funding to the project because we were able to provide a demonstrable return on investment. These days, with increasing numbers of funders requesting this type of data it makes sense to collect data as a matter of course. This kind of measurement system, which quantifies soft benefits of a program, gives nonprofits a way of measuring progress and it gives funders a true picture of exactly what their donations accomplish. We`ll continue to roll out this testing system across our programs.