Last month, FSG and Stanford Social Innovation Review hosted a meeting with nonprofit leaders, grantmakers, evaluators, and other interested organizations and individuals to explore the possibilities for learning and evaluation in the social sector called “Next Generation Evaluation.”    The conference was framed around the question: Given the convergence of networks and big data and the need for more innovation, what evaluation methods should be used to evaluate social change outcomes along … [Read more...]

[slideshare id=27255186&doc=sm4n-kanter-keynote-131016110125-phpapp01] Last week, I was honored to be the keynote presentation at the Social Media 4 Nonprofits Conference in San Francisco on why and how to measure impact for your social media integrated strategy.    For past couple of years, I have been blogging, speaking, facilitating peer trainings,  and writing about using measurement methods for nonprofits to measure impact and to learn from their data.  I  spent a year co-writing on a … [Read more...]

“You Know Your Film is Making a Difference When…” Guest Post by Ellen Schneider Note from Beth: How often have those of worked in nonprofits asked the question or been asked the question by funders, "What's the impact?" And that's a difficult question to answer - whether it is your social or network strategy or a work of art. The first step is identify what impact might look like as this post explains.       “I cried after my first big film was released,” she admitted, in … [Read more...]

For many nonprofits, Google Analytics is the tool of choice for measuring traffic, reach, engagement, and action primarily because it is free.    While it is somewhat easy to use, some of the more valuable features may require a little tutoring to understand and use.   That training was either expensive or a hodge podge of low cost webinars and free video tutorials available on the web.   But applying it on your own - unless you are an analytics genius - can be difficult. Google has launched … [Read more...]

Last spring at the "Advancing Social Media Measurement for Foundations" meeting convened by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, practitioners from social media, measurement, evaluation, programs, communication, and philanthropy worked on a synthesis of these disciplines to address measurement.  It struck me, that although we do usually think about measuring and learning to improve campaigns and program that integrate social media and networks, if done correctly it is essential outcome-based … [Read more...]