Unit 4: Measure and evaluate your product donation program

[Alicia_Schmidt]

As you implement your product donation or discount program, a critical part of ensuring your program is creating sustainable change and benefiting your recipient organizations and customers is to measure and evaluate your impact. Conducting this impact measurement will inform decisions around program development, and provide insights from a new set of users for your product. 

• Outputs vs. outcomes
• Methods of measuring impact 

No matter your activities and plans, you ultimately will need to be able to communicate the bigger outcomes or impact of your work. It’s not just about what you do, but about where you are going. Understanding this difference and being able to track and communicate the outcomes of your product pledge is crucial to creating programs centered around effective solutions to community challenges.

Inputs what resources are committed	The resources—money, time, staff, expertise, methods, and facilities—that an organization commits to a program to produce the intended outputs, outcomes, and impact.
Outputs what we count	The volume of a program’s actions, such as products created or delivered, number of people served, and activities and services carried out.
Outcomes what we wish to achieve	Socially meaningful changes for those served by a program, generally defined in terms of expected changes in knowledge, skills, attitudes, behavior, condition, or status. These changes should be measured, be monitored as part of an organization’s work, link directly to the efforts of the program, and serve as the basis for accountability.
Indicators what we use to stay on course	Specific, observable, and measurable characteristics, actions, or conditions that demonstrate whether a desired change has happened toward the intended outcome. Also called “outcome indicators” or “predictive indicators.”
Impact what we aim to effect	The results that can be directly attributed to the outcomes of a given program or collective of programs, as determined by evaluations that are capable of factoring out (at a high level of statistical probability) other explanations for how these results came to be.

Methods of Measuring Impact

In addition to quantitative measurements, it’s just as helpful to assess any qualitative feedback from your partner social impact organizations. We recommend frequent communication throughout your relationship, particularly with early adopters, to ensure you’re meeting and anticipating pain points, and adjusting your program for future success. As you scale, it can be helpful to periodically send surveys or conduct phone interviews. 

For example, one of our members, a large technology vendor, implemented the following:

• sent a customer outcomes survey on a rolling basis. It was sent 12 months after the beneficiaries acceptance of the license donation and every year thereafter on the anniversary or renewal date of the donation.
• conducted customer impact interviews and create customer stories on an annual basis
• reviewed general nonprofit customer usage data
  

Outcomes for donated software

Outcomes tell us about impact. For software donations, one way to determine outcomes for your nonprofit beneficiaries is to take a look at the business value you drive for your paying customers and determine if that value is also relevant for nonprofits or can be translated for the ways in which a nonprofit might work.

For example, if your product helps companies grow revenue more efficiently, the outcome for a nonprofit might be “fundraise more efficiently.” If the nonprofit can fundraise more efficiently, they can spend less calories on acquiring donors or managing fundraising relationships and more time and money on delivering vital services.

To gauge progress towards impact, some companies develop surveys focused on these types of business value outcomes. For example, if you are CRM company, you might survey your donated users on these areas: 

Efficiency	Community	Innovation	Effectiveness
Use data to improve service delivery Reduce overhead cost Increase funding Increase transparency	Connecting with constituents & donors External Communication Internal collaboration	Evaluate programs and measure impact Change or improve how work gets done	Enhanced mission fulfillment Achieving key outcomes

 

Include the value of donated product in your Annual Social Value (ASV) or Social Return on Investment (SROI) calculations

Annual social value refers to the total positive impact that a company or initiative generates for society within a given year. This value encompasses a wide range of social benefits, such as improved well-being, community development, environmental sustainability, and economic growth. Companies often measure their annual social value through various metrics, including financial contributions to social causes, environmental impact assessments, employee volunteer hours, and community engagement initiatives. Evaluating annual social value helps companies assess their overall societal impact and identify areas for improvement or further investment in social responsibility efforts.

Social Return on Investment (SROI) measures the social value generated by a company's activities or investments relative to the resources invested. It can encompass the cumulative social impact over multiple years, not necessarily limited to a single year. SROI typically focuses on quantifying the social impact of a specific initiative, project, or investment over time, often using monetary valuation to express social outcomes in financial terms.

Don’t forget to include the value of donated products or services as part of your ASV and SROI calculations to ensure you understand and communicate the totality of impact your company is creating.