Subject: Charity Talk - Performance Management

Here's a quick summary of the main points I took from last night. The slides and a video from the event will soon be available.

Ashiana started looking at performance management in 2004. It was a long journey, especially finding the right database, funding and resources to get it right. They worked hard to gather the right data to assess impact rather than just numbers. Now the system is embedded in the organisation's day-to-day work, allowing them to monitor trends and learn from them. But the data is used in conjuction with the stories of clients they helped to demonstrate impact even more strongly.

Ros Oakley talked about CES's 2008 study of 700 organisations and 100 funders - Accountability and learning research. She talked about the heavy burden of monitoring and evaluation but that getting it right helps an organisation to learn about itself and to demonstrate accountability to its stakeholders. She said that organisations often spend lots of time generating and collecting data but less time on the evaluation. Rather than collecting data to just keep funders happy, organisations should be using the information to learn and develop.

Have your say - if you were at the event last night, what did you learn? What questions do you have for the speakers? Share them here....

Find out more about monitoring and evaluation in our section written by CES.

For anyone reading this discussion, just to let you know that the 2 speakers from the Charity Talk on Performance Management, Shaminder Ubhi and Ros Oakley, are going to be replying to questions and comments put on this string of responses - so if you have anything you want help with or points you want to make, please Register and type away!

For those who came to the Talk, thank you for making it such a lively and special occasion.

Ian

Professor Ian Bruce

President, Cass CCE.

I think many small charities are still grappling with the idea of Social Return on Investment and although more and more organisations are starting to look at evaluating that social return I was wondering whether it might be useful to also do forecasted SROI, that is estimate/predict the social value of a charity's activities. You might find that certain projects wouldn't have enough SROI to justify the resources invested. Or if you do go ahead with it, when you do the evaluative SROI you would be able to confirm, or not, your estimates. Is it worth doing or would it be too costly/time consuming?

Hi Cris

You’re right to highlight that SROI can be used to evaluate or to forecast.  A forecast SROI does of course rely on the rather big assumption that the proposed project will achieve its intended outcomes. It seems to me particularly for small organisations that it would generally make more sense to do some feasibility or pilot work and evalaute that first before embarking on an SROI.  Forecast SROI probably make more sense in a project where there are plans and resources to deliver it on a large scale.

Incidentally if you or others want to know more about SROI, Charities Evaluation Services is running a free taster session on 6 December in London.  It is primarily for third sector organisations considering doing an SROI, but the session may also be of interest to funders, or commissioners. See here for more info

http://www.ces-vol.org.uk/index.cfm?pg=716&archive=false&offset=1

Shaminder and Ros' presentations are now up on the Cass CCE website under the heading of the event (Proving and Improving Our Worth).

Video from the event is now available. If you missed the Charity Talk event, listen to Shaminder and Ros talking about measuring impact and SROI. Charity Talks video and transcript.