“How do you measure the impact of a hug?”

I heard a story about a charity leader asking this question during a difficult discussion about measuring social impact.

I’m all about measurement and evaluation of impact. Funders and donors, please just remember a few things... 1/

STORIES are valid sources of data but are often undervalued because they are not deemed as ‘scientific’. First, you actually can do qualitative analysis and find themes. More importantly, stories capture the richness of lived experience that will get missed in other methods. 2/

Evaluation efforts should be FUNDED. It takes time, energy and expertise to develop, measure and evaluation program and approaches properly. If you want to have results, then help fund some of the work that goes into measurement. 3/

TRUST organizations to measure their work their way. Don’t impose too many restrictions, guidelines or requirements for evaluation such as making orgs do your specific survey. If everyone did that, we would be overrun with data gathering and none of it would be valid. 4/

Leave room for FAILURE or perhaps better framed as lessons learned. Evaluation isn’t only about showing positive results. It’s about assessment. Sometimes, things don’t go the way you thought, and that’s an opportunity for learning. 5/

BELIEVE that at some point, doing things that have already been proven to be successful or are highly reasonable to believe will be successful is a positive thing and may not always be able to be packaged up in a box for reporting. 6/

DON’T OVERLOOK the impact of smaller, grassroots organizations just because their evaluation isn’t well-established. They are often closer to community work and the community itself than larger orgs or government, and are mobilizing and making real change, often unnoticed. 7/

Societal issues are MESSY and COMPLEX and COMPLICATED. Evaluation will follow suit. Change can’t always be boiled down to ‘one key metric’. Oversimplification leads to loss of depth. 8/

I do believe that measurement is important to focus resources and efforts. As long as we invest in it, understand its limitations, and not let it get out of hand! End/