MFG Archive

Alberto Andreu Pinillos, Global Corporate Reputation & Responsibility Managing Director at Telefónica…. There has been much debate about the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility. I don’t want to open this perennial debate on measuring CSR here, but I will share my own view with a simple idea: CSR is not about how much money the […]

Julia Coffman… “Ask five people to free associate on “measuring social returns” and at least one is likely to mention indicators. Indicators are measures that signal whether certain expected conditions or results have been achieved. Measuring a set of indicators connected to a nonprofit’s strategy is probably the most common approach for capturing social returns. […]

We found an excellent cross-post opportunity via The Bridgespan Group and SSIR on our topic of Measuring Social Return. Christina Triantaphyllis and Matthew Forti make the case for why donors and their grantees should work together to advance practices that measure and evaluate outcomes. “Global NGOs are at the forefront of addressing a host of […]

The content on Markets For Good is driven by guest contributors and focused on monthly editorial themes that, together, provide a framework that allows us to attack an otherwise unwieldy topic: upgrading the information infrastructure of the social sector. In November we asked you, the Markets For Good audience, what you thought we should be […]

Ravi Kurani… “We’ve been measuring and valuing negative externalities for a long time, with governments using taxes to realign incentives and costs. Now it’s time to measure and value positive externalities as well.”

Mary Kopczynski Winkler, Senior Research Associate, Urban Institute… “Last week over 450 nonprofit, philanthropic and government leaders came together in Washington, DC at the After the Leap Conference (organized by Leap of Reason and PerformWell partners Urban Institute, Child Trends, and Social Solutions) to challenge the status quo when it comes to measuring nonprofit performance.” […]

Carly Pippin of Measuring-Success …”We’ve seen a valuable lesson emerge from collaborations between school districts, faith-based groups, and city-wide non-profits: there is no social return without a little WIIFM -‘What’s in it for me?’  How could this be appropriate for achieving social return? Isn’t the whole point of social good to consider ‘What’s in it […]

If we are to talk about measuring social returns, a good starting place is the outcomes that lead to them. This is the point where can measure both the organization itself (sustainability of the business and the model) as well as the cumulative effects of specific outcomes on the lives of the people we wish […]

This month’s theme will focus on Measuring Social Returns. To frame the discussion, we’ll take a critical look at both the actual measures of social return and how we measure; that is, we’ll consider the underlying tools, systems, and architectures for results measurement.  Now, let’s heat the pool with a quick look backward.  (Oh, that […]

Daniela Gilbert, Deputy Director, California Partnership for Safe Communities (CPSC) speaks on using data not only to support program work but also to identify stakeholders and provide deliberate impetus for them to begin working together on specific community problems. …