Outcomes-Based Approach
The Staten Island Foundation now emphasizes measurable outcomes at the proposal stage. For organizations that are not familiar with setting measurable outcomes, we offer some thoughts about the outcomes-based approach.
For those organizations just beginning their work with an outcomes-based approach, The Staten Island Foundation is open to working with you or to providing funds in order to build your organization’s capacity to set targets as well as to verify and use results to improve performance.
In our primary areas of interest: Health and Human Services, Education, Civic and Community, and Arts & Culture, we seek to invest in those programs and services that will provide measurable human gain for residents of Staten Island. This goes beyond the activities not for profit organizations offer, to the level of quantifying the difference those activities are making.
The Foundation will review proposals by looking at the strength of the proposed results and whether the proposed results are clearly articulated and set at a comparatively high level. In addition, we will examine whether there is a clear way to verify the proposed results. Our new applications and new final report forms, available here, focus on results and allow the Foundation to track an organization’s progress toward those results.
In developing our outcomes-based approach, we have consulted with the Rensselaerville Institute. The Institute develops outcome tools for funders and nonprofit leaders to help shift their focus from activities to results. To learn more about the Institute, see www.rinstitute.org.
Results matter, as the Foundation looks more carefully than ever for the difference that funded programs and services will make in terms of human gain-- the measure of changed lives for a better community.
We look forward to higher aspirations for Staten Island and to the success of our nonprofits that help our residents, especially the least advantaged, realize the accomplishment of those aspirations.
Betsy Dubovsky
Executive Director
April 2009