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Measuring What Matters: A Reflection from the ED

By Shannon Murtagh

FCP's Executive Director Shannon Murtagh shares how she got into this work, and the importance of cross-sector philanthropic collaboration in building the outcomes movement.

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Accountability can be scary.

Especially for nonprofits and philanthropies working to improve lives in America. This country has a history of turning accountability into punishment. “Measurement” has often meant “measure up. Or else.” That may be why so many funders and nonprofits have been doing great work quietly or by measuring programs not outcomes.

I started my career teaching at an outdoor school in Washington State, and then I spent years indoors, at a policy and research institute focusing on how system-level decisions impact the classroom. I’ve seen how outcomes work functions at all levels. While in the K-12 space, I was often perplexed by one recurring tension: the goals and outcomes we designed for students did not feel rooted in honoring the communities the students came from. Implicitly, success meant leaving. Of course, education should absolutely prepare students to go elsewhere if they want, but it should also help create a world where staying close to home means thriving. Our metrics rarely measure that kind of success. My work (indoors and outdoors) made me ask: If students see thriving in the community where they grow up as an important, successful outcome, then how does the educational system count, track, and resource the path to that kind of success?

More importantly, how do we measure what actually matters to communities as a whole and move them towards thriving lives?

The answer can be found in cross-sector work, community collaboration, and, first and foremost, a deep understanding of what communities believe matters. That’s the core of Finding Common Purpose’s mission. Publicly measuring progress against community held-outcomes is an essential tool for creating systems-level change that will improve the lived experience of people in this country. Focusing on long term community outcomes is necessary for purposeful, positive, change. With all that in mind, I was thrilled to recently host a roundtable with 12 Boston-area funders to share FCP’s work and learn about theirs.

From the nearly two decades I spent in philanthropically-funded non-profits, I can attest that funders working collaboratively to advance the work of grantees not only eases the burden on grantees, but it also improves the likelihood that funders will see the kinds of progress they hoped their investments would propel. And while I am newer to the philanthropy side, I do want to be clear that I understand there are very real barriers to meaningful collaboration. Varied timelines, reporting systems, and grant-making cycles, to name just a few.

Beyond that, foundations have missions and giving-focusses that are crucial to their work. So how do we start aligning?
This Boston luncheon was a model first step. We got to present FCP’s focus on an outcomes movement and walk others through our logic model, which shows how strategic focus and regional alignment around outcomes is essential to drive systemic change. It creates real progress towards thriving lives. Other funders got to ask questions, poke holes in our thinking, and push us to ensure that our giving will actually build an America where everyone can access a thriving life through hard work, which is our mission.

It also allowed us an opportunity to think, with other funders, about why both the nonprofit and philanthropic sector are doing work to shift outcomes but are so hesitant to publicly measure them.

From others in the room a few overarching themes emerged including: Wealth inequality and economic security deserve more explicit measurement, it’s needed to drive change, and several in the room are already connected to promising national efforts worth linking together.

There is a real appetite for dashboards and shared data as tools for alignment and coordination, not “proof” of impact. Tied to that there is awareness that small nonprofits and community organizations may lack the capacity and knowledge to track outcomes effectively, pointing to an important role for intermediaries and peer networks in building that culture. Community work can be fragmented, duplicative, and even contradictory. There’s a meaningful opportunity for data and shared visioning to bring organizations into greater dialogue. Most promisingly, there was a shared sense in the room that we need to make progress — and a shared interest in continued learning, staying locally grounded, and pushing philanthropy toward greater accountability and coherence.

Finding Common Purpose is committed to measuring what matters, to continually focusing on and making choices that better support Americans in the long run by using data to hold us accountable to real progress.

The work is about ensuring that we can address pain points, but we find and fund work that works for people, not against them. FCP did not invent this work, but we have seen pockets of this work that are promising and believe amplifying and replicating it broadly has immense potential to improve lives. I, and FCP as an organization, am looking forward to continuing to make space for these important conversations and to continue building and learning with those in the room for the luncheon and others, how we can create a country where people can live where they want, thrive in place, and support their communities.

I’d love to keep the conversation going. If you’re interested, please share your thoughts with me on LinkedIn @Shannon Murtagh, or through our website findingcommonpurpose.org