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Measuring the Impact of Safety Net Services
The San Francisco Foundation convened a number of grantees to discuss how evaluation can be used as a tool for deepening impact. On Thursday, October 13, more than 50 nonprofit leaders representing a wide range of safety net service providers – food banks, shelters, legal aid, and multi-service organizations – gathered at The California Endowment for a discussion on "Understanding the Impact of Safety Net Services."
Mark Cloutier, program director for Public Policy, Community Health, and Civic Engagement, first welcomed grantees and introduced consultant Clare Nolan of Harder + Co. Community Research. Nolan shared a presentation about how nonprofits can best approach evaluation. She noted that, while research shows 85 percent of nonprofits have done evaluations, only 25 percent consider staff as an audience for the evaluation results.
Nolan encouraged participants to think of evaluation as a learning process to help them better understand their work and increase impact. She also suggested that nonprofits think of evaluation, not as an extra, but as a core component of their work.
The next guest speaker, Cassandra Benjamin of Safety Net Funders, noted that Bay Area homeless organizations had already shifted their models to prevention as a result of doing evaluation. And John Bateson, executive director of Contra Costa Crisis Center (CCCC), presented results of a suicide prevention study that not only confirmed the effectiveness of CCCC's crisis hotline—which is 92 percent—but drew the interest of a local hospital that partnered with the CCCC on future research.
To dive more deeply into the topic of evaluation, we encourage you to check out the following resources: