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Monday Jun 11, 2007
The Rise of the Reporting Machines
I'm all for measuring impact when it comes to fundraising, and, for the most part, I get the impression that charities are steadily improving when it comes to accountability and transparency.
Recently though I seem to be having more and conversations that revolve around the amount of time and resource that goes into measuring the impact of charitable support. I'd be really interested to know how much staff time is spent across the voluntary sector on measuring impact, and, more to the point, what the impact of all this measurement really is.
What I mean by that is what really happens to these reports once they're written? I know some of it ends up in a CSR report, or the company website, but is it really communicated to employees for example?
Does that even matter?
Also, does impact reporting offer any guarantee that donations have been used wisely and cost effectively?
Even if that isn't the primary purpose, I think it's definitely an underlying theme.
If one of the main purposes is to inspire employees and donors, then coming up with a figure for the total amount of cash levered from a partnership certainly isn't going to float my boat. I'd rather hear some inspirational case studies, or get out and about and try and see the impact for myself.
So who is all this reporting for? If the main purpose is for donor organisations to demonstrate how active they are in their communities, then shouldn't the resource needed sit more with them?
As a starting point, I'd love to see some independent research into how much cash is being spent by the sector on reporting. As this figure increases over time, are we going to have to start fundraising for money to spend on reporting?
Perhaps we'll end up in an eternal cycle of getting donations to fund reporting, then reporting on that reporting, until we stop being charities and start becoming reporting machines.
Monday morning rant over - as I mentioned at the start of this post, I'm 100% behind charities being accountable and being able to demonstrate the impact of their support. I just think sometimes we're in danger of measuring the wrong thing.
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 9:15 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
