Measuring Social Impact & Effective Storytelling

The Certificate in Measuring Social Impact and Effective Storytelling helps participants reorient their focus from measurement as a compliance activity or “thumbs up, thumbs down” assessment of effectiveness to evaluation as the foundation for organizational learning and program improvement. An ongoing commitment to measurement allows nonprofits to determine what works and what doesn’t so they can improve services over time. Rather than being a task that is entirely outsourced to consultants, evaluation should be embedded into the culture and operations of a healthy nonprofit. The entire team plays a role from the Executive Director to the Communications Director and frontline staff.

This course provides a practical toolkit for conducting evaluation to drive social impact. Students will explore how to take the findings from evaluation and use them to inform program improvement cycles.

At the completion of the Certificate, participants will have an enhanced understanding of the importance of measuring and communicating their organization’s social impact. In addition, each participant will complete an evaluation project that utilizes many of the concepts presented. The evaluation project will be selected by the student and completed largely during class time with support from peers and the instructor. It will give the student the opportunity to practice evaluation-related skills including creating or updating a theory of change, developing an evaluation plan, creating data collection protocols, analyzing data, visualizing findings, and communicating positive and negative results.

The certificate program is a cohort experience that embeds peer processing, reflection, and a network that extends beyond the program. It includes a Capstone Evaluation Project. It is 56+ hours, comprised of 8 sessions of 6 hours each plus homework, 9:30 am to 3:30 pm every week. Some sessions will be in-person in Austin and some will be via zoom. To receive a Certificate, participants must attend at least 85% of the sessions.

We are grateful to the Anderson Foundation which provided initial funding to develop this program in 2023.