Measuring impact in Philanthropy
Measure me this
Over the past few years, the buzz on the street in the development space (read: international development), has been all about impact. What is it? How does it affect our bottom line? Is it related to success - and if so, how? Who’s involved? How to improve it? But most importantly:
How to measure it…?
Quite a few people have been thinking about this for awhile now, and first among them is Sasha Dichter from Acumen Fund. His thoughts on the matter merely reflect a broader movement within philanthropy that is focusing on what it means to create a sustainable development space that is responsive to changes on the ground. Of course, before measurement comes definition, and what a bugbear that has proved to be! Sara Olsen at the SVT Group has spent years trying to answer this question, and while she has been generally successful in some ways, it seems that a cookie cutter solution will be hard to come by.