057: The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guest this week:

Robert Penna, author of “The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox: A Complete Guide to Program Effectiveness, Performance Measurement, and Results”

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://mpgadv.com

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Zoho welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio we’re always talking about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I hope that you were with me last week for first segment the goods on google, plus our tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, scott koegler shared insights into whether google plus is different than what we’ve already got in the social media space and how to help you to decide the answer to the question should we jump into google? Plus, when organization page has become available and we also did a live google plus hangout second segment last week was breaking down barriers. Megan galbraith, managing director at changing our world, had strategies to get public relations, communications and fund-raising working together for greater efficiency this week, the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Robert penna, author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox a complete guide to program effectiveness, performance measurement and results discusses the wave of reliance on outcomes, measurement and how small and midsize non-profits khun ride it comfortably alongside big shops and learn lessons from the corporate community on tony’s, take two from my block this week if donors are investors, then they need a motley fool. I think we’re going to see the rise of investment advisory services. There were a few, but mostly for the wealthy that recommend giving to some charities and against giving to others, which is very different than what we have in the space today. That’ll be on tony’s, take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour we’re live tweeting today, use the hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation with us on twitter. We take a break right now, and when i come back, i’ll be joined by robert penna. We’re going to talk about the non-profit outcomes toolbox, so stay with me. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Geever hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio. My guest now is robert penna. He is the author of a complete i’m sorry. The non-profit outcomes toolbox. A complete guide to program effectiveness, performance measurement and results published by wiley and sons. He’s, a consultant and his work includes the application of corporate sector, outcome based tools and insights to the work of non-profits he’s done work for the n e casey foundation, the national geographic foundation and the ford foundation. He’s, an adviser to charity navigator on outcomes. I’m very glad that his work and his book bring him to the studio. Robert. Welcome. Thank you very much for having pleasure to have you. Thank you for coming all the way down from albany. No problem. Live in the studio. In the studio. We hear an increasing amount of talk about out comes out comes measurement. Why is that? I would save it for basically two reasons. A one’s historical. The fact is that traditionally and this goes back easily to the beginning of the last century. No one ever asked non-profits to be quite fair. No one ever asked non-profits to either show evidence of or to demonstrate that. They were having an actual impact that was sort of a field of dreams and concept. If we make it available, things must get better, and it was taken on faith that train people with good programs with enough money would bring about positive change. Nobody actually quite asked altum that all started to change in the late seventies and then into the eighties, and quite independently of one another in various spaces, this concept of a focus on results in outcomes and evidence of same started a crop up, and it began to coalesce and particularly as we are in an in an era of limited resource is it becomes more important than ever for non-profits to be able to say here’s actual evidence of what we’ve accomplished, as opposed to a story about how big the problem is or how hard we’re trying in his forward ken berger, president, ceo of charity navigator who’s been a guest on the show, says that measurement is a battle for the very soul of the nonprofit sector. It’s taking on that great a prominence? Yes, it is that actually that line comes from a from an article ken and i co co authored it really is because there are those apologised who honestly believe in its ah term use before a fair exchange of differing ideas. You honestly believe that non-profits and their clients should not be held tio this kind of accountability that the concept of just making services available truly is the mission of the non-profit space and that as long as they’re doing that, they’re doing their job. The problem is that for all of the money we’ve spent thes problems haven’t gone away. And so the question is, shouldn’t we be putting our our resource is into those programs into those organizations that have proven that there having the most beneficial impact, as opposed to giving it to other places that are perhaps not being as effective? The problems are too big, and the resource is of too scarce not to do this anymore, but it truly is a battle within the sector because there are those who just don’t believe in it, and we’ll get to a little of what their arguments are, maybe obliquely only, but that some of the ideas are so nebulous that they can’t be measured that like a child feeling a more positive. Ah, feeling about education or about going to school, sort of nebulous ideas like that. But actually, those, um, sort of feel good outcomes can be measured. Well, first off, i would argue that if an organization is focusing primarily or almost or solely on, feel good outcomes, they’re rethinking what they’re doing. Number one. But number two, there are proxies. There are proxies in terms of attitude, in terms of behaviour, in terms of various other kinds of things that can be looked at and can be taken as fairly accurate measures of whether or not if what, you want to changes in attitude, whether or not that attitude has changed. So it can be done. And we’re gonna talk about some of the ways that non-profits get there and the way that we can measure these things. Is the butt is the story is the non-profits story the compelling story is that is that dead? Well, it it shouldn’t be dead, but what it should be, what should happen is that should be put in its place, okay? The idea of telling a story is not a bad one, in fact, that there’s a whole chapter in the book that talks about using narrative as opposed to just factoids, because people remember stories where they have a tendency to forget much more vivid right stories vivid. But the problem is, if the if the story first off focuses on how big the problem is and that’s all it, it focuses on, and there are a number of non-profits i won’t name any, but you could probably think of them. You get through with the things in the mail and they show you the picture of x, y or z and it’s always how big the problem is when we’re telling that kind of story and that’s all we’re telling we are, in a way, avoiding entirely the question of well, what are you doing about it? And what other results that you have that you have achieved? So that’s one one reason why the story has to be put in his proper place? The second is, and i don’t know whether we’ll get into this today, but a lot of non-profits wind up telling the wrong story for the wrong reason and ofttimes to the wrong people so that something has to be carefully handle is okay, we have just another minute before a break, what if not a named example? What do you mean? Telling the wrong story? A lot of non-profits will focus on an emotional story that will highlight, for example, a success story, and it will be about this client of that client, but inadvertently, what they’re doing is they’re focusing the attention on that client. What we don’t know is, is that story cherry picked? How representative actually is it what they’re not talking about is thie the the work that the organization as a whole does it’s it’s? Shall we say it’s it’s macro impact? They focus so specifically on the story of this particular client at that particular point that becomes very easy for their overall message of what they’re doing to be lost, counterproductive in counter falik snusz his book is the non-profit outcomes. Toolbox, it’s, robert penna. You’ll find his blogged outcomes, toolbox, dot com, and he’ll be with me after this break. So stay with us because you didn’t think to getting dink dink dink. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, get in. Thank you, cubine. Are you stuck in your business or career, trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future. You dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight. Three backs to one to seven to one eight one eight three. 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Metoo welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio talking to robert penna about his book the non-profit outcomes toolbox right before the break, robert, we were talking about for too much focus on problems, but the non-profit sectors exists to solve problems. So shouldn’t they be talking about what the problems are? Well, again, it has to be put into its proper place in its proper perspective. And this is not, you know, women teo, bash the sector. Okay, i mean, we have to be on it eyes and say, this is a historical perspective and very early on this was how attention was brought. Tea to issues were literally going back to the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds pompel people, for example, he’d carry nation she’s well known for wanting teo, bring about prohibition. Well, what she talked about was all of the ancillary downsides of alcoholism, all right, and the folk. But the focus was on drink. The focus was on people drinking too much. And the idea was they didn’t think think it through to say, well, what’s really gonna happen. What other causes here? It was just too focused on the drinks, and we had prohibition and guess what? All of those issues did not go away. The issues of broken families, the issues of domestic violence, the issues of unemployment, the issues of of poverty didn’t go away just because we we got rid of alcohol for those period that period of time. So part of the problem of the focus on just the problem is it tends to lead to simplistic answers, because the concept is that progresses a lack of the problem when, in point of fact, really, the outcomes approach is that what you want to do is bring about some positive change that goes beyond merely an absence of the problem. So that’s one of the problems with focusing on just the problem, the second thing is that it kind of takes you off the hook if you think about it, for having to say, really what you have done to alleviate the problem or what success you’ve had in alleviating the problem. If every time i come back to you, pick an issue, homeless puppies, i come to you and i sent put something in the mail and tony, you know, look at all these starving puppies and i say it was ten thousand starving puppies and you know it, justin in manhattan or someth that’s a problem and you emotionally are expected to resupply with a cheque will. Now, next year i come back and i say, well, now, there’s ten thousand homeless puppies, this still ten thousand homeless puppies will again. What it keeps focusing on is the problem it does not focus on am i having an impact on alleviating such chelation so that’s, a real sort of short way of describing why that tends to be a ah sort of a circle, you know, like the snake eating its own tail. It really doesn’t get you where you need to pay. And you alluded to earlier the fact that we do still have deep seated, entrenched problems that we have been working on for generations like homelessness, entrenched poverty, etcetera, exactly right be a hunger of broken family, you name it, these problems, or of worldwide and so you might even get thes these appeals from any place on the globe. But it tends to in a lot of ways, i think lead to a sense of defeat, because, i mean, think about it if every single year, you get the same appeal from the same organization showing the same picture of the same a person in need. The question starts to it begs the question, well, what’s happening with my money, what we’ve been at it for so long, and we’re still seeing the same one problem. One gentleman i speak there speaking to some months ago, he runs a non-profit e program in ohio, and he said to me, well, do candy said, you know, we’ve been fighting this war on poverty for, you know, forty something years, and i’m not so sure we have anything to show for it. And part of the reason is that from the beginning, what we have to show for it was not the accent the accent was on making money available and making programs available. You’ve heard a thousand times there, the concept, the underserved community, right, which you could argue about whether they’re actually underserved enough that’s a different story. But the question is what it seems to lead to. It leads to the implication that if you make services available, things will be better. Well, that’s not necessarily true. Just making them available, zach. Will will result in the outcome that you want exactly, and for years social investors you know, traditionally called funders, we’re investing in making services available rather than investing in change, and if you’re investing in change, then there ought to be sameer marks of the change. The whole concept of moving your your your your head away from the idea of being a funder. What’s being an investor is one of the first the first steps what’s a fund interested in a funder is interested in the dispersement of funds in terms of the process, the paperwork who’s it going to what’s it being used for what’s an investor interest is an investor in investor wants a return let’s talk about some more of the language differences that you point out not so much differences, but the important language around outcomes measurement that takes up roughly the first third of the book or so gent generally outputs versus outcomes, outputs or what you do outcomes of what happens because of what you did okay? Example of an output and output is training class, and the outcome would be that somebody got a job by virtue of having been trained. And more importantly, kept the job for a reasonable amount of time when and this was this was rampant in the late sixties and seventies. Excuse me, but when thanks to largely the government we got into being counting and compliance, no organisations were measured onto in terms of how many fannies their head in the seats, how many training training class they help? Well, that was great, but then it turned out in some cases people we trained for jobs that no longer existed or the training was insufficient, or there really was no placement attached to it. So we had organizations claiming success because they’ve had x number of fannies in the seats or because they held so many trainings. Well, they gave us so many certificates, but the end of the day was anybody hyre did anybody did anybody’s life improved? Well, don’t ask me that question when i focused on that we’re focused on how many training on the output not come from the outcomes spring from the outputs. Yes, yes, you need the outputs in order to get the outcomes and they have to be the right outputs. But again, if that is only just your focus is there’s a saying that a colleague of mine, a colleague of mine who wrote a book, if well, you fundez activity that’s. Usually all you get? Yes. Okay. All right. Impact, impact flows from outcome. What? Tell us about it and that’s down the road that’s down the road. In other words, for example, let us say that what you were talking about was bringing possible water. And this is something i was engaged in a t united nations potable water, fresh water supplies to certain kinds of villages. I was pronouncing potable. Is that okay? Potable vote on a laudable somebody made a tomato, somebody from and why you were calling correct one of us. I have to. But i was so it’s possible that anyone when you were with the united nations so that’s a hyre i’m just tony martignetti non-profit radio it’s hyre hyre standing. But you had a situation where okay you’re you’re bringing fresh water. And now you could think of a host of reasons early on why you might want to do that. One of the more interesting ones to me was to alleviate the burden on the women and girls. In the village usually whose job it is to do nothing while david hold water one of the reasons why their educational opportunities were so so stunted was because, well, gee, somebody’s got to get the water and that’s the woman and children’s job. Or rather, a woman and girls job. Well, let us say that you bring it in and let us say that some girl does get to go to school. Well, perhaps if twenty years later when she’s an adult, she actually has a business and gets out of the out of the village, that might be an impact. But the problem with the focusing on impacts these long term impacts is very often the causal chain is extremely weak. The causal chain is broken and it’s kind of hard. Teo teo to take credit for some things. I mean, we’ve all heard the stories of the head start program that’s taking credit because thirty five years later, one of their graduates became the head of some, you know, ceo of some company. Well, you know, thanks, snusz because back in nineteen forty seven, he was with us in today’s end of a corporation. I don’t know. About that, but i honestly would say impacts agreed to have these are the kinds of things you see in mission statements and vision statements. The long term impacts, what organizations need to do is figure out how to translate those things into measurable, achievable, significant, meaningful outcomes. Okay? And shortly we’re gonna talk about the outcome statement and contrast it with the mission statement and talk about what the elements are and how to get to ah ah, eh, a proper and and viable outcome statement. So yeah, and just around impacts, you say in the book impacts or what we hoped for, outcomes are what we work for. We’ve talked about that means your outcomes or what you’re working toward the impact of the the longer term we really we talked about funder donorsearch sis investor. Anything else you want to say about the about? Maybe non-profits looking at themselves as invest, ese. Well, that’s, that’s a very good point. I mean, when someone gives you a gift. Christmas gift. Okay, now we’ve all had the relative who gives us something. And then every once a while checks are you using it? You? Have you been? Did you? Like the sweat in most people that give you a gift, they hope you like it, but they really don’t have any kind of control now. My grandmother used to give me cash, she would slip me cash in by hand like a handshake, and she would always say, spend it like you earned it. My grandmother never did that. You didn’t know i’m sorry, no migraine with a borrowed but no that’s, um, we’re not related even starting now, but the idea is when someone gives you a gift, really the in most cases, the string of scott, you know, the the very there, the influence they have over the use of that gift, et cetera. Well, the problem is when you think of yourself, if you’re a non-profit as a grantee of donor of a donation or giving, okay, the implication that the onus is on you to deliver something back to that to that donor to that investor is i like to use use the term is much less clear than if you see them as investors and you see yourself as an invested because right from the start from the basic language, what we’re making clear is that you owe them a return investments give returns exactly. And so the mindset shift is that i mentioned before the first one is moving from the concept of thunder to investor the second is moving from the concept that what we’re investing in is the provision of services opposed to we’re investing in change, and then what are those changes and how do you define them? And the third thing is that we’re going to be satisfied with an account of activity as opposed to actual evidence of results, performance and effectiveness. The’s a three crucial mindset shifts that the space has to eventually and will adopt, and the sooner non-profits get on this, the better off they’ll be. You quote stephen covey saying, it is incredibly easy to be very busy without being very effective. Well, we’ve always have seen those people who can, you know, go to the office in the busy all day, and at the end of the day, what have they actually accomplished? And the answer is, you know, not a heck of a lot and that’s, you know, that’s, the wife, i’m with robert pennant he’s, the author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Let’s, talk a little about the outcome statement versus the how does it contrast with the mission statement? The well, mission statements of very often pie in the sky and aspirational mean they ought to be yes, and an inspirational okay, okay, but the idea is that the idea that we’re going to solve a problem in our time we’re gonna end poverty, will end homeless. Is thies air the kinds of things that you very often see working their way into? Ah, emission statement or vision statement. The problem is that how do you then actually turn around and effectuated if you basically go to an investor and they said, what do you know what we’re gonna do? We’re gonna end and homelessness. Well, you’re probably not. So when you don’t, what do you could do? You come back and say i failed an outcome statement is based upon a couple of key characteristics that good outcomes have among those are all right. It’s. Meaningful it’s. Not a cosmetic change. It’s. Sustainable that’s. A very, very important one. Right? It’s achievable. All right, there’s, an old state. Everyone talks about the weather. No one does anything about it. Why? Because global warming aside, it’s. Tough to do anything about the weather. All right. But if you a couch your your goals in not slam dunks you want, they want them to be doable with a stretch. You? I mean, you clearly want to push yourself all right. But the idea is that you want it to be something that can be achieved in your lifetime on dh something that can be measurable. The sustainable part is particularly crucial. I think of my involvement. I’m a lifelong scout. Around fifty eight years old. I first joined the boy scouts when i was ten. I mean, eagle scout. Well, i never made it that i was in the order. The arrow you want? Ditigal oh, no, no, no it’s a different. But i have a son who was in the order of the arrow and he’s an eagle scout like vicarious thrills. But we i remember ah, project, where are we going to clean up a lot and throw this lot had been used as a dumping ground. The scouts came in and we weed whackers and rakes and tree pruners. And we turned it looks like a park when we’re done all right. And we congratulate ourselves. Up, up, up we all went home in that night’s peace. Somebody dumped a refrigerator. It wasn’t a sustainable achievement because we didn’t have the facility for either blocking it office, stopping people from dumping again. So the concept has to be again in terms of a good outcome, one of the characteristics and aki one is this concept of sustainability. But again, to go back to your question about the difference between a mission statement of vision statement and an outcome statement a lot of organizations have a tough time differentiating in the book i refer to ah, vision approach. You may recall the book in the book, i had a picture of some futuristic city, teo illustrate that my belief is that mission statement envision statements are both great things, a good ideas, they’re visionary, they belong up on the wall, but they don’t belong in terms of you every day action plan, they’re different from an action plan. It’s the difference be between having the long term goal of i want to speak? I want to be trimmed and having an actual diet that you’re that you’re following. All right? Um, you know, there are numerous examples we could have that we could we could point to okay, i’m realizing now, since we’re talking about since i’m talking about being an eagle scout, you know, i didn’t measure the the outcomes of my eagle scout project, which was teo. Make sure that address is street addresses were visible to emergency services in my little town of altum panned newjersey, which had maybe three thousand homes or so so we looked at every home and where there wasn’t a visible address from the street that a policeman or fireman or the ambulance could find could see it easily. We left a note in the in the mailbox and the note was signed by the police chief, the fire chief and the the head of the ambulance corps. But that’s just that’s just activity. I don’t know what the outcome’s were. I don’t know if more lives were saved. Police response times. We’re reduced fire response times are reduced. That would have been right. That would come into the out moment. And what? And if you had done the eagle project as an outcome, you know, an outcome based thing that was specifically the kinds of things that you would have wanted to look at. Now that was response time reduced. Yeah, you know, i don’t know anything is dramatic is where lives saved but certainly were response times reduced. You could even you could even have done it as looking at things like ups, you know? Did ups have fewer lost deliveries because they were brought to the wrong home. All right, i have thiss factual case up in albany way. Have to hold on your case. Feeling bad? About my eagle project from thirty five years ago, this is tony martignetti, tony martignetti non-profit radio. We have to take a break after the break. We’ll be tony’s. Take two for two minutes, and then i’ll return with robert penna. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications. That’s. The answer. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com metoo dahna welcome back to the show, it’s time for tony’s take two two minutes at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour. Roughly my block this week is if donors are investors, then they need a motley fool motley fool is an online investment advisory service actually recommends stocks, too, its members and my thinking is, and this is sort of related to what robert and i are talking about if donors are in fact investors to non-profits then are we going to go beyond just ratings that charity navigator and guidestar offer into recommendations, overt, explicit recommendations, invest in this non-profit this other non-profit is not a good recommendation, not abi, maybe it’s ah, hold or maybe it’s even a cell? Um, there are organisations like this that do services like that they’re a couple do them mostly for the wealthy rockefeller philanthropy advisors is probably the best known, but i think if if if donors are becoming investors than we’re going to see this trickle down, too, the average moderate income, modest income investor in non-profits and then, you know, with the with the comparisons across non-profits b bye sector like and with that sector be charitable mission would it be geographic, so that may be the best healthcare investment, as as an investor is a certain hospital or or ah non-profit clinic in aa county or in a town or in the city? Um what it would have come to the point where it’s, you know, your investment in the indianapolis dance company is most likely to pay off or more likely to pay off, and what does pay off mean than some other investment in some other indianapolis arts group or or dance company? So i think related to what robert and i are talking about and just interesting, you know, um, non-profit investment advisory services, you know, are we headed there? There’s more about that on my block at mpg a dv dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, september second, bringing robert penna welcoming him back now. We were just before the break, talking about the outcome statement hyre should be meaningful, achievable, sustainable on dh the book goes into a little more detail, even oh, and i’d like to because i’d like to help our listeners achieve an outcome statement. Ah, you say that should be bound in time and number. The outcome stable? What does that mean? Well, what it basically means is rather than saying, we’re going to change the world, it’s, that we’re going to specifically a change ah, certain measurable of facet of characteristic of someone for a certain number of people within a certain given period of time. So the idea said, we’re going to achieve x for why number of people within two months, three months, one year, whatever it may be so that the idea is that first off it’s it’s tethered to ah, a certain number of people that you’re going teo achieve this for, and also a certain specific times. So that, for example, the investor knows when the payoff comes, let me give you another reason why this is crucial if you were if you read the book as they know you know you did, you probably came across the work capacity ten thousand times capacity. You don’t have to read the book to hear about capacity over the building in no, no, no, but over here, this is a very, very specific use. If you haven’t outcomes approach, it automatically begs the capacity question, because if you are clear about what it is you want to achieve from that flows what it is. You need to get there, which then challenges you to say, do i have that capacity most non-profits and i hate to use generalizations. But i think in this case, it’s true. Most on traffic. It’s a most people who are aware of the non-profit space when you talk about capacity building the first thing they will think about his dollar signs. All right, we’re having a capacity capacity raising effort. What? It’s? A fund raiser. True capacity, however, has three levels. All right. The first one is structural capacity. How is the organization run? How is it managed? What’s the relationship between the board and the executive leadership what’s the quality of the training of the staff, et cetera. The second is what i call functional capacity. Basically, what that means is if you go, you do have the tools to do what you say you’re going to do. If you were an education organization, then you need educators. You need a curriculum. If you’re counseling organization unique counselors and you need some sort of models, they’re all your inputs. Yes, exactly. The third one and perhaps the most important one is the implementation capacity the’s are the thousand and one little things that not just non-profits but anybody trips up, trips over when it comes to actually doing a job, it could be, for example, twenty you or i are going to put a curtain rod, and it turns out we don’t have a level well, if we don’t have a level, how we’re gonna make sure the curtain rod is level that’s an implementation capacity issue when you talk about a non-profit it could be everything from the from the requirement to provide transportation so the clients could actually get there to something like intake if you want. If you’re goingto have seventy five people, let us say graduate from your program will do you have the capacity for a new intake to actually process those seventy five people? So they’re not standing on line three hours and losing interest and wandering away. Who’s gonna answer the phones let’s say you have a a an outreach effort going on, and you have a training program and you put the word out on the street, but then it turns out that your non-profit is really run all by part timers and most of the time, if anybody calls to get information, they’re either going to get just a phone that rings or they’re going to get an answering machine that’s a capacity questions. So if you’re doing this correctly, it really forces you to look at a number of things, including the capacity that you have to actually achieve the goals. If you don’t have it, then you have to upgrade the capacity or perhaps scale back the goals and flowing from this quantification of of what you want outcomes to be is measurable because they become measurable when you’ve quantified and bound in-kind time number so we can, in fact, measure things that are i have previously been so just vague sort of objectives. Let me give you a classic example on this may sound like a bit of a stretch to euro to your readers, but you and i being roughly the same age, i think you have. You have readers we have listen that’s, right, our reader listeners, because they’re all gonna buy your book, my readers just the non-profit outcomes toolbox published by wile e you recall when when when we were kids, we had things like, you know, lincoln logs and directors were there and they were even wood and the logs we’re made for, right? Okay, this is going to sound like a bit of a weird one, but compare think back, compare when you’re building one of those things, too. When your mother built a big cake, your mother baked the cakes you took all the ingredients she pour them in a bowl should put him in a pan, she put in the oven and she lost at that point total control of what was going on. No one’s going to know whether cake was good or bad until after it was done. It came out. It was cool when you tasted it, and if something were on, there was nothing you could do thinking back, however, to the example, the lincoln logs with the tinker toys, the directors that we had a guide. The guide showed a step by step where we should be at every point in time, if at any point in time, what we’re building didn’t look like the picture we could stop, we could go back and we could fix it. That’s one of the differences of working with outcomes as opposed to not when you don’t work without comes we have to be the only position you’re in is to hope for a good end result, but you can’t control it because you have no idea really what’s going on with the variables. If you’re tracking using an outcome system all right, and it is bound in time and is bound in number, and you do know that by a certain date x number of people should be at stage four if they’re not there, then you still have time to fix it if you have no clue where they’re supposed to be, or what we could do was hope for good results of the end, and if you don’t get it, well, then we did, you say, sorry, better looking altum you don’t know that as a child actually had an easy bake oven, i didn’t have the lincoln logs. My brother had the lincoln logs, i had the easy bake oven dahna they should also be your outcome statement verifiable, and this is all really, i’m i’m breaking it down the way you do in the book, but just flows naturally from the way you’re describing it. We have to be able to verify where we are time versus goal on dh and reassess, say more about verifiability. Verifiability basically means that some third party can look at it without spending a ton of money, because again, and maybe this is that not to take anything away from professional evaluators, but evaluation cost money and professional evaluators in professional valuation services. I mean, these people are very good at what they do, but the point is that hopefully what you’re doing is verifiable in the easier way i mean, is there’s an old saying, you know, chicken soup is good for the soul? Well, it could be, but it’s, hard to tell. You know, what you want to do is you want to stick to things that have some fairly easily discernible evidence that can be seen and that’s what it means, my verifiable it means staying away from outcomes to talkabout, as you said before, well, somebody feels better about themselves. In their place in the universe, well, that’s a little bit nebulous. And so i would recommend that if you’re looking to create a good outcome statement, a good outcome for you program that you stay away from the cosmic, the psychic, the overly emotional and definitely the extraterrestrial. Okay, so first step to create a proper outcome statement is what decide what you want to be different at the end of this program. So you’re definitely looking forward toward gin with the end in mind begins, and you say that the book begin with the engine dart with what do you want to be different about a certain situation or a certain set of conditions as a result of your program, start there. If you can’t define, then maybe should rethink what you’re doing and in determining that you need to be bound in number and time and those miserable those of the descriptions as you working back, which is yes, but the idea is what you want to start with is a change you want to start with being able to define a change. We’ve kind of alluded to this, but the basic basic idea with the changes what’s called the backs measures change in the behavior, attitude, condition, knowledge or status of those you seek to serve. So you start with the change in their behavior, their attitude, that condition and knowledge or the status and it doesn’t have to be a person. It could be a forest that could be it could could be a watershed. The status goes from being threatened to not tear being safe to being protected. But the idea is you start with the change and defining if you can’t define it, then my suggestion is you start to rethink a lot of organizations. Start with the problem. And then the next question is, what do we do? Well, what do we do? That’s that’s. The wrong place to start the place to start is first off. What changes do we want to bring about? Secondly, what resource is will it take to do that? Thirdly, you know what actions or programs will it take to effectuate that it’s? A total reverse of the usual way of approaching most of these issues. That’s. Ah, sort of a summary of of developing your own outcome statement. And there’s, obviously a lot more detail. In the book again, the book is the non-profit outcomes toolbox, we have just about a minute before the break, how do we start to apply and outcomes analysis? You have a lot of tools in the book, but how do we get there? Well, first off an easy thing by the book, but beyond that, there are any number of very, very thoughtful people who have created some of these tools that are out there. The problem is that most non-profits i don’t know about them. Everybody, for example, is heard of the logic model. Well, what they don’t understand what the logic model was originally intended to do was to intended to be a supposed to the way a lot of people are suggesting it be used. Today there are alternatives to this, and the book is one way of finding out about them and it reinventing the wheel is not necessary. These wheels have already being been invented. The question is knowing which ones work for you. And that was the whole concept behind the toolbox approach to the book that perhaps we can talk about after the break. Okay, way are going to take a break. If you’ve not heard of the logic model, then you’re with me. So i’m going to ask robert after the break to just briefly talk about that. And then we’re going to talk about some of tools and lessons you can learn from the for-profit from the corporate sector in outcomes measurement. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio stay with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Buy-in oppcoll this is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing effort. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile market. Their motto is we do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. Contact them today. Admission one one media dot com told you. If you have big ideas and an average budget to tony martignetti non-profit radio, we dio. I’m jonah helper, nari team in co founders of next-gen charity metoo welcome back to the show. Our last segment. Let’s define the logic model because maybe i know it by a different name, robert. But you may know that what is that? That is actually the name of it. If the logic model is a away that non-profits have had for some years now ah planned it’s one of the tools that they’ve used for planning how to get to the outcomes from the starting point. But the logic model became very well known when kellogg adopted at the kellogg foundation. Same is the cereal people, the telephone, isha and united way of america adopted. And in both of those cases they kind of put the word out amongst their there either case of kellogg, that grantees, and in the case of the united way of america, the local affiliates, that this was one of the earliest outcomes frameworks that you could potentially use not doing under do plug. But in my previous book, outcome frameworks, that was one of the things we talked about, because the idea was there were these various models, and how do they compare one to the other? And what were the pluses and minuses of all of them that had never been done? Before, which is why i wrote that previous book, but the logic model truly was meant as a is a graphic illustration of cause and effect within a program that this input will lead to that which will lead to the third, which will lead to the fourth and hopefully get you two the the the the end point that you that you desire, the problem is it was never actually designed to be a management or tracking tool. And when organizations and there are a lot of people, very thoughtful people who do use it for this personally, i think it’s cumbersome and what you wind up with since the whole design was a flow chart, very often you wind up with all of these various lines at the doubling back on each other. So some of someone i know, okay, so we’re past that now that we’re in the outcomes toolbox, right? And why did you choose the toolbox metaphor? Kinds of the toolbox was very simple. Let’s go back to that curtain, rod, you and i, we’re going to put a human. You don’t go back to my eagle scout. No, no, i’m still sinjin, i’m going to go back to the curtain rod, you’re not going to put up a few minutes ago without the level. Let’s say you’re putting up the the curtain, ron and all the tools you had. We were craftsman. And at one point you needed that level that i mentioned and you say, bob, give me a level. Well, if the level i gave you was a stanley, would you refuse to use it? Because it was a question like all the other tools? Probably not. You would. You would use the tools at hand. Okay. In the non-profit space, most of these frameworks, our proprietary, this one belongs to ran. That one belongs to the rental of ill institute, the third one’s associated with this with this person or this institution. As a result, what traditionally happened was, let us say, a representative of that organization or the consultant came in and they would wind up basically saying to non-profits my model b a, b, c or d it’s the bass o matic of outcome frameworks. It slices it, dices it chops, it walks the dog. It does everything. The problem is none of them do everything. All of them. Do something, all of them do several somethings some of them do some things very well, but none of them do everything well. And so what we want of doing was inadvertently offering them the space eighty pence, eighty percent solutions to one hundred percent problems. It’s telling people, for example, that the logic model was the be all and end all was one such example. My concept is, and the reason is called the toolbox in the book, i do not care about the authorship, the ownership, the providence or anything else about any of these tools. If it works, i want you to use it, and i’m not going to tell you not to use it because you’re not using the other pieces of the same sex that’s the concept truly a toolbox reaching grab what works for you, and if you’re not oriented to its tools, think about it as a kitchen, you know, again, you know, if you have a, you know, one brand of, you know, say, blender and another brand of you’re not going to not use them to the same meal because the different brands you’re going to use, what you need now. You’re in my space because now i mean that’s for my easy bake oven days. Okay, right. The kitchenware. That’s. What if that’s why i went there? I can see that you is resonating with much more comfortable with spatulas than i am. Phillips head screwdriver. First time i used when i had to go to the emergency room that’s because you were trying to scrape a pan with so the book has ah, lot of model of of these tools talks about dahna maybe a dozen or so. Some of the simplest ones are you get what you measure results based accountability, even one from mckinsey and company capacity assessment tool. But maybe not those necessary. But a lot of the tools in the toolbox do emanate from corporate outcomes. Measurements. Some of the some of the latter ones. A lot of, you know, there’s. A lot of what are what? Why is it translatable? I mean, from for-profit tuna for-profit, you know, a lot of times not-for-profits community is worried about things that come from corporations. Yeah. Peter drucker. Except for money. Not a cz investigators, investors, but but now there is that fear. What were some of the less peter drucker made the comment that non-profit should be run more like business, and everyone thought that, you know, he was he was the prostate, and he was ah, heretical and my god, you know, corporations a big, nasty things, and after all we care, you know, we have a non-profit sector. The truth of the matter is that no one is more interested in outcomes in the corporate world. Now they tend to call the court that their outcomes profitability, market share, etcetera. But the idea is they’ve been leading the way literally since, you know henry ford was putting model tease out of on assembly line, there are tools, for example, like six sigma. There are tools that i said heaven saying, sabat against there are tools like six, six, six sigma six sigma. The question is what? The hell’s, a sigma and where the six of them that’s explained in the book it’s basically a measure of quality. All right, six sigma focuses on how many failure rates are there per million opportunities to fail. I mean, you don’t really have to get into that, but the concept is it has some key insight something for example, like t q m t q jargon jail. Oh, ok, you know, take your total quality, man. You know, i didn’t know what i mean, that’s what it cost him, and i’m not going to lock myself in jargon jail. What it means is critical to quality most non-profits when they’re designing a programme, do not ask this question, as the corporate world does with corporal world is launching and launching an effort, one of the first things under six sigma they would do is say, what is the most critical part of this that we need to have? If a non-profit were to adopt that kind of that kind of concept and that kind of analysis, it could go very, very far towards helping them focus on the most important parts of a program, the key things that they absolutely must have. But this is a perspective that is very often for into the non-profit space, but very, very built into the corporate space, particularly using something like six sigma, i see a future masters degree in non-profit outcomes engineering yet it’s perfect, exactly there’ll be exactly well, but when we have maybe a moment so we can talk about something called serve qual, which they’re using pizza hut, if you imagine, think a tool from pizza being used in the non-profit space now that’s that’s the suggestion that we talked about, regrettably, we’re out of moments right of moments. Well, the lesson is don’t be fearful of what comes from the non-profit from from the for-profit sector because these are all important, easily quantified things that corporations are focusing on, like earnings per share in a quarter, right? Exactly. And how do you get there? What do you need to do to get there? The book is the non-profit outcomes toolbox, a complete guide to program effectiveness, performance measurement and results published by wally wiley and sons, you’ll find robert penn is blogged at outcomes, outcomes toolbox, dot com robert, thank you very much for being on the show. A pleasure. Thank you very much for having it was a pleasure and enjoyed immensely. Thank you. Next week, september eleven giving what of the trends been? What can we expect going forward around that? My guest will be christine cronin, president of n y charities dot or ge? You can always keep up with what’s coming. Up on the show, sign up for our insider email alerts on the facebook page there’s a link to sign up and get those weekly alerts while you’re there, click like become a fan of the show, you can listen live or archive you’ve been listening live. You can listen archive on itunes subscribe and listen anytime, of course. 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