Nonprofit Data Collection Basics (2- Minute Guide)
- Ryan Brooks
- Apr 2
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 21
Show your nonprofit matters: count services and successes.
Who Cares?
It feels daunting to show that your programs "work," and it's really hard to "prove" that your work changed someone's life.
It's simpler to show that your programs "matter" because they meet needs or address social problems.
A "what and how much" approach helps nonprofits think about the data they need to collect with two simple questions:
What did we provide or achieve?
How much of it did we do?
Learning More
What did we provide or achieve?
Your nonprofit should track the services you provide and the larger achievements of your services.
Outputs: These are the units of service you provide, the tangible things you do
Examples: number of meals served, number of people who attended the resume workshop, number of tutoring sessions offered.
Outcomes: These are the changes, achievements, or successes that result from your work
Examples: Adults obtaining living wage jobs, families securing affordable housing.
How much of it did we do?
Counting - you can't count everything that you do, but it's important to count your key services and important achievements.
With data on your key services and achievements, you can summarize the number of people you served last month or the number of coaching sessions you provided last quarter.
TIP: If you talk about it on your website, you should probably count it.
Success Rates - how likely are you to achieve a result (i.e. outcome) that you care about?
Do 25% of your participants succeed or 75%?
Knowing your success rates helps you push to improve them.
Why Track Outputs and Outcomes?
Tracking outputs and outcomes helps you demonstrate that your organization "matters".
Outputs explain the services you delivered (and how many).
Outcomes reveal the impact of those services (lives changed).
Tracking outputs and outcomes helps you improve
By connecting services to successes, you can identify services that drive outcomes and services that don't.
Learn more about nonprofit data tracking
Check out some of our other posts about outputs, outcomes, and tracking your impact.
Are you a small growing nonprofit? Check out countbubble.
The Standard Plan is ideal for smaller nonprofits. that are ready to upgrade past spreadsheets. countbubble's free plan is perfect for small nonprofits that aren't ready to pay for better program tracking software.
Founder, CountBubble, LLC
Comments