Today the Nonprofit Millennial Bloggers Alliance is writing about how our organizations have been doing more with less, thanks to some great inspiration by Do Something CEO Nancy Lublin’s recent book, Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business. (Nancy Lublin, by the way, is one of my favorite nonprofit writers. Check out her monthly column in Fast Company.)

Let’s step back a little and highlight the obvious: Zero in this context refers to zero money. Not zero talent. Not zero determination. Not zero creativity. My experience in the nonprofit sector over the last year has focused on the work of start-up nonprofits, where people are doing a lot with little to no budget. It is absolutely amazing the things people will come up with, how they will leverage existing low cost technologies, seek out free networking opportunities, utilize connections and so on. One project I’ve been especially excited about, is Pipeline’s #womeninnovator video series which was started by Strategic Initiatives Associate Claire McGovern just this summer. The costs are low (one-time flip cam cost + volunteer hours + free vimeo account) and the returns are high (recognizing, highlighting, and promoting women innovators + creating buzz + fulfilling the org’s mission). The ROI is totally measurable in this context too, as long as we place a dollar value on the social returns.

The only aspect of this equation that is difficult for start-up nonprofits is the sustainability of volunteer (or in other cases underpaid) staff. But, even here there are some great opportunities for non-financial compensation. Providing professional development opportunities, sharing professional contacts, writing letters of recommendation, flexible work schedule, more vacation days, etc. Thanks to the growing interest in high quality-of-life jobs, there are lots of ways nonprofits can satisfy their loyal staff that don’t include big end of year bonuses and tickets to sports games.

Nancy says it best in Zilch:

The misconception is that not-for-profits don’t have to be innovative, that we aren’t ambitious, and that we can simply rely on hard work and commitment and we’ll do just fine…Instead, [innovation is] an integral aspect of out daily functioning. Not-for-profits have to be innovative continuously in order to survive. We need to be creative in order to keep costs down, to find fresh sources of funding, to energize our own over-worked, underpaid staffers, and to figure out an original way to put on an annual event. Without an abundance of resources or manpower, innovation is a way of life.

Furthermore, part of the nature of the nonprofit sector is not only questioning but also rethinking the status quo. This in and of itself requires a great deal of creativity and innovation!

As an artist, I’ve always found that I produce my best work when constraints are applied.The smaller a box you are given to work with, the more things you will be able to discover you can do within that box. Think of kids: One of the most amazing things about kids is they can have every toy in the world, their bedrooms overflowing with expensive dolls, blocks, cars, science sets, video games, etc. but they are bored and “have nothing to play with.” And yet, those same kids can spend an entire afternoon fabulously entertained with just a bucket and a shovel. Or a piece of chalk. Or a stick. The same is absolutely true of nonprofit, or any company for that matter. We just have the good luck to have self-imposed creativity demands.

I was on vacation with my family in Vermont on January 12th– mostly concerned with sledding as much as possible and eating buffalo wings and s’mores. So, upon my return to civilization I was caught off-guard by the whirlwind of the Haiti earthquake. I saw on CNN the announcement that 50,000 people were presumed dead. “What?! That cannot be right.” I could not comprehend the number of human lives lost or wrap my head around what was going on. But the number has only continued to rise and fatalities are now estimated at over 200,000. It is beyond staggering.

I find it very difficult to understand what it going on and so, I do what most people do when trying to comprehend a difficult situation: I try to empathize. Although, of course in this case that is impossible–I try my best.

I was 10 years old when Hurricane Andrew–a category 5 hurricane–hit South Florida in 1992. I remember the day before the hurricane hit: our house was boarded up with plywood, we brought all the backyard toys into the living room, I took breaks from pulling down grapefruits and avocados from our trees (so they wouldn’t break windows when the wind picked up) by jumping in the pool. We were in an evacuation zone, so we left in the early evening for my grandmother’s house. We passed the night 6 of us in my grandmother’s closet sitting on shoes.

And the next day our house–along with every other one in my neighborhood–was completely destroyed and uninhabitable.

We spent the next couple of months as vagabonds. I remember sleeping in sheets that were unknowingly covered in fiberglass and itching uncontrollably, moving from one person’s house to another, feeling lucky that my grandmother had a gas stove so we could cook and boil water. My mother, meanwhile, was literally excavating our home for anything she could find to salvage, trying to process our insurance (and document every single thing we lost) so we could have a place to live, and just making sure we had the basic necessities. Businesses and schools were closed for months–the economy obviously under duress–as residents tried to piece their lives together and make sense of a life-changing catastrophe.

Hurricane Andrew resulted in $40.7 billion (2008 USD) in property damage and 69 fatalities [Hurricane Katrina resulted in $89.6 billion (2008 USD) in property damage and 1,836 fatalities]. Fatalities from Hurricane Andrew and Hurricane Katrina are each less than 1% of the current estimated fatalities in Haiti. These numbers only just begin to put the extreme devastation in Haiti into perspective. Wyclef Jean, who has been in Haiti recovering dead bodies, very appropriately describes it as the apocalypse:

What does this mean for aid? For disaster preparation? For emergency response? For sympathy? For empathy? But maybe more importantly, for collective action?

The truth of the matter is that it is impossible to understand what is happening in Haiti without being there–you can only imagine, and I know my imagination is not even scratching the surface despite my experience with a destructive natural disaster. But that doesn’t prevent action. Today the YNPN-NYC listserv has been full of benefit events from various nonprofit organizations to raise money for relief efforts in Haiti. The Nonprofit Millennial Bloggers Alliance committed to writing about the topic. Individuals around the world are donating money and raising awareness–text message donations alone have already raised USD$22 million in a week. Celebrities, including Sandra Bullock and Gisele Bundchen who have donated USD$1 million and USD$1.5 million respectively, are also making major financial contributions to the relief effort.

But perhaps the real action is a long-term commitment to relief, development, and moral support. It took South Florida years to fully recover Hurricane Andrew, New Orleans still continues to struggle post-Katrina–and this disaster is far, far worse. Young nonprofit leaders, get ready. Now is the time to step up.

I want to preface my answer by saying that I am a total nerd–so looking at numbers, evaluating statistical relationships, and quantifying values are all very exciting to me. But why do these things matter to nonprofit organizations which are providing social good? If Girls on the Run (GOTR)–”a nonprofit prevention program that encourages preteen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running”–provides a great after-school program, does it really matter what the impact is? Shouldn’t we just be glad that they are providing this service?

The State of Measuring Social Impact

One of the main reasons that social impact measurement is not very well developed is that oftentimes nonprofits are granted a sort of amnesty from evaluation and critique because of their mission-based structure. There is an attitude of: “If you are doing something good, we really aren’t going to be too hard on you.” The second reason is that quantifying the value of social goods is a very difficult and often contentious issue. Your Economics 101 class will always bring up the “how much is a human life worth?” argument. Most people would say “priceless,” but health insurance companies have a real dollar amount they ascribe to the value of human life which is what they base their premiums off of.This is obviously an ethical and moral issue for many people and has been the source of much academic debate.

In the case of Girls on the Run a question might be: (a) How do you measure the self-respect of preteen girls?  and, (b) How much is that self-respect worth?

Defining Social Impact

How a nonprofit defines social impact must relate back to its mission statement. Let’s look again at Girls on the Run’s mission:

Girls on the Run is a non-profit prevention program that encourages preteen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running. Our curricula address all aspects of girls’ development – their physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual well-being.

Based on their mission, does it make sense for GOTR to do a study to see how many of their participants end up competing in college-level sports? Although an effect of the program may be to encourage more girls to participate in athletics that is not the mission of the organization nor the goal of its programming; therefore, this is not a good definition of the program’s social impact.

What would be an appropriate definition of effectiveness? GOTR’s mission implies that “self-respect and healthy lifestyles” encompass several factors: physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual well-being. While all of these things will probably mean different things to different girls, this will be the basis of how the organization will define the impact of its programs. They may define positive impact as girls who have high self-esteem, are proud of themselves, are empowered and actively empower others. How they actually define social impact is rather more dire:

Some Sad Facts For Today’s Girls:

• Three million young Americans seriously considered suicide in 2000 and of those, over 1 million actually tried to kill themselves.
• Girls were twice as likely as boys to report contemplating suicide.
• Body dissatisfaction and dietary restraint are predictors of depression in girls.
• Almost two-thirds of girls in 5th-12th grades are dissatisfied with their body shape and want to lose weight.
• Girls as young as five form negative self-images based on their weight.
• Among girls, an emphasis on popularity and slimness along with increased television viewing are linked to low self-esteem.

If You Want To Help Change That, Here Is Some Good News:

• Girls who participate in physical activities are 40% less likely to smoke, have higher levels of self-esteem, better body images, and lower levels of depression.
• Girls who have experienced emotional trauma respond positively to physical fitness programs.
• Girls who participate in physical activities are less likely to engage in risky sexual behavior during adolescence.
• Girls who participate in physical exercise have better relationships with parents, get better grades, are less likely to use drugs and are less depressed than girls who don’t.

By defining their social impact, GOTR has made a very strong case for why its after school running program is necessary. Now the trick will be ensuring that the program is actually impactful.

Measurement: Why bother?

If it seems clear that you are doing something beneficial, why do you need to bother investing time, money, and energy in determining how to measure something as abstract as self-respect?  It’s a good question and I have two answers.

1.) You are in the business of being an expert in _________ (fill in the blank). In this case, girls’ self-respect. Therefore, it’s your responsibility to be not just a program administrator, but also a thought leader–which includes researching, deconstructing, and analyzing the issue you are addressing. Or, if being a thought-leader is beyond the scope of your mission or services, you need to be connected with people who are the thought-leaders in your area.

2.) By better understanding the mechanisms and variables you are working with, you can better serve your population and achieve your mission. Look at this example:

You have high cholesterol and your doctor advises that you switch to a diet of only Cheerios. Two months later you go back and still have high cholesterol. Are you going to keep forgoing other foods in favor of Cheerios? Hopefully not. Hopefully you either (a) get a new doctor or (b) you and your doctor devise Plan B and will have another follow-up to re-evaluate your progress.

Evaluation, trial-and-error, and analysis make so much sense in the case of health, why not social impact? The only difference here is that centuries of medical research give doctors the sophisticated ability to measure cholesterol and provide baselines for comparison. In the Middle Ages, I doubt you would have stopped eating those Cheerios. As far as social impact measurement goes, this won’t require centuries of work but rather a commitment to the importance of social impact metrics, some experts, and some creativity.

GOTR has defined the impact they want to have, but now they want to measure their impact. So what do they do? Call in an expert and get creative:

And The Best News? If She’s Involved With Girls On The Run:

• she has higher self-esteem;**
• she has improved eating attitudes;**
• she has an improved body image;** and
• she has a positive peer group and positive role models for her future.

**According to research conducted by Dr. Rita DeBate, Ph.D., MPH, CHES, assistant professor in the department of Health Behavior at UNC-Charlotte, the Girls on the Run Curricula improve girls self-esteem, body image and eating attitudes to a “statistically significant” extent.

How else are they (unofficially) measuring success? The had an essay contest (sponsored by Secret, all winnings went to the winner’s GOTR chapter) asking each girl to explain “How has Girls on the Run helped you to be more fearless?” Hannah, a 3rd grader from Chicago wrote:

“Through Girls on the Run I learned that I’ll never reach my goal unless I take a chance. I know if I try my best and put my heart into it, I can do anything. I never thought I could finish a 5K but I practiced and worked very hard until I reached my goal. Even though I wasn’t first, in my mind I was a winner, because I tried my best and had fun.“

(I imagine that there are a lot of adults who wished they had that perspective.)

Valuing Social Impact

In the Cheerios example, how highly you value health and longevity will directly correlate with the amount of time, money, and effort you invest in lowering your cholesterol (which in turn relates to what you expect your return on investment, or ROI, to be).

In terms of GOTR, what is the value of girls’ self-respect? What does that translate into in terms of quantitative impact? Do self-respecting women lead more productive and successful professional careers (income is quantifiable), have less health issues (health care costs are quantifiable),  provide better educational opportunities for their children (tuition is quantifiable)? Are there other proxies for the value of self-respect?

Social Impact Investing

Not only does measuring social impact give us great feedback in terms of performance and areas for improvement, but it also helps us evaluate ways to maximize social return on investment. In the end, as a sector,  we want to get as much social bang for our buck. What does that require? Constantly looking for ways to achieve our missions more efficiently and effectively and having a clear understanding of the measurable value of our social impact.

Check out how some of the other nonprofit millenial bloggers view this issue:

Colleen, Does Writing a Check Equal Social Change?
Elizabeth, What is Social Impact?
Alison, Five Problems with How We Measure Social Change
Elisa, Measuring Social Impact
Tracey, The Meaning of Social Impact
James, Measuring Social Impact

• Rosetta Thurman, Perspectives from the Pipeline, @rosettathurman
• James Elbaor, From the Desk of James Elbaor, @jameselbaor
• Elisa M. Ortiz, Onward and Upward, @emortiz
• Elizabeth Clawson, Nonprofit Periscope, @eclawson
• Trina Isakson, Trina’s Nonprofit Blog, @telleni
• Colleen Dilenschneider, Know Your Bone, @cdilly
• Tera Wozniak Qualls, Social Citizen, @terawozqualls
• Tracey Webb, Black Gives Back, @blkgivesback
• Kevin Gilnack, (Nonprofits + Politics)2.0, @kgilnack
• Allison Jones, Entry Level Living,@ajlovesya
• Ben Sheldon, Island 94, @bensheldon

I encourage you to follow these great social change advocates on Twitter and read their fabulous and insightful blogs. You will not be disappointed! I promise!

Stay tuned! As tomorrow is my innaugural Alliance post!