Unit 2: Common metrics for philanthropy including grants, donations and product

[Alicia_Schmidt]

This section reviews core Corporate Social Impact topics and provides an overview of common metrics, measurement of outcomes, and considerations for measurement. This inventory is by no means exhaustive, but may serve as a starting point for companies to begin or review their impact measurement and reporting activities.

This inventory was developed by cross walking metrics collected and used by ACCP, CECP, Benevity, and a random-sample of corporate social impact reports.

 

Philanthropy

• Grants 
• Donations 
• Product

 

A Note on Metric Types

In the following article, each metric is tagged with a metric type. These are offered to help facilitate thinking and discussion of metrics, however they are not set in stone. Whether or not a metric is an output or an outcome depends largely on the goals of the program or initiative, and its theory of change. 

Input	Activity	Output	Outcome	Impact
Company Resources: time, people, money, etc.	What Companies do with their resourcesPrograms offered and services provided	Immediate results of the activities: products, services, time spent	Resulting behavior, condition or state of well-being	Change in behavior, condition or state of wellbeing that resulted from the activities
HOW MUCH WE DO
		HOW WELL WE DO IT
			IS ANYONE BETTER OFF?

 

Category	Metric	Metric Type
Grants and Donations	Total financial value of grants portfolio	Output	How Much
	Number of recipients/partner organizations	Output	How Much
	% grants that align to impact priority areas	Output	How Well
	% revenue that giving represents	Output	How Well
	Partner/Grantee satisfaction/ experience score	Outcome	How Well
	Aggregate number of individuals served by grantee organizations	Output	How Much
Product	Number of organizations/individuals receiving donated product	Output	How Much
	CSAT or NPS score of individuals/organizations using donated product	Outcome	How Well
	Value of donated product	Output	How Much

Valuing Donated Product

There is no standard. Approaches vary for ascribing a dollar value to donated product. Establish fair market value (FMV) or actual selling price and take into consideration discounts as well as donations.

Partner/Grantee Experience

More and more philanthropies are reporting not only how much they are giving, but the quality of their partnership and how well they are collaborating with and supporting grantee organizations. Read more about the Trust Based Philanthropy Learning & Evaluation Framework.

 

Measuring Outcomes

Most of the common metrics for measuring philanthropy impact can be categorized as outputs — they tell us about how much an organization is doing and possibly about how effectively their operations are running. They do not tell us a whole lot about outcomes or the impact that’s generated through philanthropic giving.

This is, in large part, because companies are giving across a wide range of issues, causes and geographies, each representing different sets of goals, purposes and outcomes. Companies will need to identify outcomes metrics that speak to their unique philanthropic mission and goals, and realistically reflect their investments with partners and communities. But this doesn’t mean you are alone, and need to figure it all out yourself. Although each company’s mission may be unique, a great deal of work already exists to standardize the measurement of program effectiveness and investments on specific topics and issue areas. It is recommended to both build your own Theory of Change and understand current thinking in the field.

World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA): Anchored to the UN SDGs, the WBA is creating benchmarks across a wide range of pressing ESG Issues.

Global Reporting Initiative: Provides sustainability reporting standards, including sector and topic standards.

Evaluation.Gov: The US Federal Government creates evidence-based evaluation metrics for its departments and programs. If you are working on a particular social change topic, especially if based in US geographies, this can be an excellent resource.

Measurement Considerations

Leverage what exists for grantee reporting: When it comes to asking grantees to report to you, consider the level of effort relative to your investment and explore whether you can leverage what they are already reporting, rather than asking for something bespoke.

Attribution & Contribution:  Contribution is the idea that your influence is only one of many factors that brought about a change, while attribution is the idea that your intervention was the only reason for the change.” (SoPact) More than likely, your institution is but one funding-actor in a wide ecosystem, so the goal is to think about how you are contributing, rather than what impact you can claim as your own.

Advice from the field

In late 2023, the Pledge 1% Builder members gathered for a virtual thinkspace huddle, where they came together to share specifics about what they are measuring, what makes it hard and what makes it worth it. Attendees engaged in small working groups and documented their perspectives on a shared white board. The results of these conversations are shared here:

What makes it hard

What makes it worth it

Getting accurate values of donated product What data do we collect, and how do we make sense of it – especially when we work with multiple grantee organizations, with different missions and approaches Balancing data collection needs with grantee relationships & burdens Going beyond measuring outputs to collect outcomes - not just knowing what to measure, but actually getting that data Resources are limited, making data collection hard Making it meaningful to the business and internal partners

Enables us to learn and understand what’s working in order to shape programs and maximize impact Shows what we’re doing is working, and helps us tell the story and justify the work (internally and externally) Demonstrates the brand commitment to causes and community Grantee success is our success - What do they care about most?

 

What data do our members typically collect:

• # Beneficiaries/people reached
• # Product users
• # Nonprofits supported with product and grants
• Metrics related to practice areas (i.e. meals served, pounds of food waste prevented) ✓ $ Distributed
• Organization types
• Geographies
• % BIPOC/women leaders funded, DEI Stats of Grantee Orgs
• Net Promoter Score
• Outcome-level metrics for select partners
• Improved technology capacity (i.e. people hired, retained, comms enabled)