One of the foremost challenges facing many nonprofits is the challenge of reporting success. Is the program working? Is it accomplishing its goal? Is it worth investing in? LINC North Texas believes that our programs are worth investing in, because we believe that they change lives. But don't take our word for it. Really! You should be able to see concrete proof that they change lives. Grant-making foundations have been leading the way in pushing charities to scientifically prove their results. They are famous for saying, "Measure your outcomes, not your outputs." Here at LINC NT, we take that seriously, and we are launching a major campaign to do just that.
The most popular measure of a program's success, whether it's at a nonprofit or a church, is attendance. That's an output. For example, last year we served 1246 students and many of their parents through our Student Advancement & Leadership Initiative. That's great, but at the end of the day, does it matter? They could have all slept through class, or gone home and immediately forgotten everything. One of LINC NT's outcomes for SALI is for students to learn essential character and leadership skills that will enable them to succeed in school and beyond. Measuring attendance doesn't indicate success. To do that, we have to find out whether these students are better people after SALI than they were before. That is a much more challenging task, but the journey is rewarding. Not only are we able to show our significance to foundations and people like you, but we are able to find out for ourselves what improvements we need to make.
A recent survey of 702 students shows the impact of SALI is significant. After SALI, 294 students said they resolved a conflict with what they learned. More than fifty percent of students said they argue less with their parents due to learned conflict resolution skills. In addition, 83% of students said they would take some form of action when witnessing a student being bullied. This fall, we are taking it to the next level. With a precise system of pre- and post-tests over two-year segments of SALI, and with the help of two awesome volunteers (Michael, who helps design surveys; and Sara, who is a data mining expert), we intend to show scientifically that SALI is achieving its outcomes. We look forward to reporting that success here!
At the end of the day, I believe that this shift from measuring outputs to outcomes is a valuable change beyond LINC NT. Are there places in our everyday lives where we need to change the scorecard? Many people today report being busier and busier each year, but at the same time we tend to feel drained, unfulfilled, and unimportant. At the end of the day, do we measure a successful day by how hard we worked, or how well we achieved our goals? What if our goals went beyond working hard to things like making a positive impact on people around us, and to things like glorifying God in every aspect of our day? How could our lives be more fulfilling by changing the scorecard every day?
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