This is the last post in a series of post about my experience at SXSW.   This post summarizes the sessions I facilitated or participated in related to "Measuring the Networked Nonprofit," which included a book signing, panel discussion in the Beacon Lounge, and a workshop with co-author KD Paine. Amy Sample Ward facilitated a lunch time conversation about impact measurement for nonprofits in the Beacon Lounge with Lynn Labieniec of Beaconfire and Robert Rosenthal of VolunteerMatch.   It was a … [Read more...]

Two new books on measurement and analytics came to my attention this week.  One is about nonprofit performance assessment and written for an audience of nonprofits, especially those that manage social service programs.  The other is about using data to make decisions, but for the start up audience.    They have some ideas in common - including finding the "One Metric that Matters."   Here's a quick review of both books. While I was working "Measuring the Networked Nonprofit" with KD Paine … [Read more...]

Flickr Photo by Kevlar Note from Beth: You need a identify a measurable goal for your integrated social media strategy that can be linked to your organization's overall results and pick a data point  or KPI that you will collect along the way to measure success.   Let's say you want to improve engagement with stakeholders and your KPI is an increase in the number of comments on your social platforms.     How do you pick that number?  Measurement is a comparative science, so you have to compare … [Read more...]

Most of think about infographics as part of our marketing and communications tool box.  Therefore,  we want an end product that looks good, professional, and captures attention and if we lack graphic design chops  we turn to in-house graphic designers or hire professional designers..    I couldn't agree more! But there is another reason to consider "DIY" infographics - as a sense-making technique.    My personal rule in measurement is to spend 30% collecting and organizing data and 70% thinking … [Read more...]

The process of linking results to key performance indicators and associated metrics it is like hooking up a big TV.  You have to do it one component at a time .    The first and most important component is identifying success or the most important result and linking the right "Key Performance Indicator" or data point that you will collect along the way to understand if you are making progress toward your goal.    Then comes the difficult part - identifying what "associated" metrics from social, … [Read more...]