2018 Impact Summit

Representatives from 4 indicators projects that have slightly different models of organization will discuss the business strategies they have used to sustain themselves. Panelists will briefly describe how they operate – e.g., their size, whether freestanding or part of a larger organization, their governance, their current sources of revenue, and key features of their history.

Panelists will address strategies their projects have taken to maintain strong relationships with stakeholders or to ensure adequate funding or generate revenue, how to sustain visible impacts in their communities, how to stay nimble and responsive over time.

CIC explains that “indicators measure what the community cares about and track whether the community is moving in the right direction.” But indicator projects can find it challenging to measure what their audiences care about, whether the project is moving in the right direction, and how the project is making impact in the community.
This panel session will describe select findings and lessons from an external evaluation of three indicator projects that receive support from the Bush Foundation: Minnesota Compass (www.mncompass.org), North Dakota Compass (www.ndcompass.org), and South Dakota Dashboard (www.sddashboard.org).
Panelists from each indicator project will share strengths and areas for improvement that emerged from the evaluation and what they are doing with the information to move their projects forward and will reflect on what additional information they would like to have to demonstrate impact, maintain relevance, plan for improvements, and sustain support. 

Evaluation and data collection can be complicated. Often funded partners do not have trained staff people that are able to provide quality information that we as Untied Ways can use and share with the community. What can WE do to insure that the data being collected and shared is of the up most quality? What types of tips and tricks are available to increase capacity to agencies? How do we ensure that funded partners are utilizing the information they are collecting to increase the quality of programming they are providing and to better tell the story of the work they do? Finally, how do we as funders take the aggregated picture of all of this information and best tell the story of how of the work we do.