Why measuring change can be so hard

A conversation I had with a friend yesterday reminded me why measuring change is so hard. 

I was telling this friend how proud I was of them because I could see how differently they were talking about themself now from a few years ago. 

Nothing directly measurable about that. Just a pattern I’ve observed over time. And yet, I am certain that there has been a change. 

It made me ask, “how would I even track that?”

I think we get this way in organizations too. We’ve been doing the work, observing people, and noticing these subtle, long-term shifts. 

Those patterns are a testament to the hard work you and your team are doing. 

But here’s the problem: they don’t give us anything concrete to show to potential clients or funders to keep the work going. 

Just like you check the reviews for a product you want to get or a restaurant you want to try, funders and your potential clients want a stamp of approval too.

They want to know that their time and/or money isn’t being left to chance – that there is a track record of success.

Right now, it’s grantwriting season – a ton of federal grant programs have recently released their calls for proposals, and organizations everywhere are trying to write up their own track records to compete for funding.

Not only do those proposals need to include evidence that your organization can successfully turn your proposed idea into reality, but they need to see that you have a plan for how you’ll prove that implementation was successful. 

Double whammy.

So how do we turn our observations and intuitions into a clear pattern of past success AND a measurable pattern of change in the future? 

Think back to what you actually want to accomplish. What are the outcomes you hope to see for the people you are trying to support? 

For example, if you’re running a youth mentoring program, your dream outcome is probably not that they’ll attend the sessions (although that is important and something we can track). You’ll probably want to see something like increased college acceptances or improved resilience – longer-term results. 

However, it’s much easier to track the number of college acceptances than it is to see if someone is more resilient, right? 

That’s why measuring change can be so tricky! 

The things that REALLY matter are not as straightforward to keep track of.

Of course, there are survey scales that we can use to track someone’s resilience over time, but for many organizations, these can be hard to implement. 

Plus, a survey alone may not paint the full picture of someone’s personal growth.

This is a great opportunity to do focus groups or interviews to hear – in their own words – how mentoring may have helped the youth receiving services. 

Remember: you can prove your success in lots of different ways, using different types of data. 

Try piecing a few things together to tell your story in an even more compelling and authentic way.

Intuition and observations alone won’t get your organization more funding – but we can use them to guide our choices for data collection and make sure that the story you tell is true to the heart of your work.