Long before reinventing government came into vogue, the Urban Institute pioneered methods for government and human services agencies to measure the performance of their programs. Today the use of performance measurement has exploded at all levels of U.S. government, in nonprofit agencies, and around the world. The Institute continues to work at the forefront of new techniques and frameworks.
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Outcome Indicators Project The Outcome Indicators Project provides a framework for tracking nonprofit performance. It suggests candidate outcomes and outcome indicators to assist nonprofit organizations that seek to develop new outcome monitoring processes or improve their existing systems.
Performance Measurement: Getting Results, Second Edition This comprehensive guidebook synthesizes more than two decades of Institute Fellow Harry Hatry's groundbreaking work. It covers every component of the performance measurement process, from identifying the program's mission, objectives, customers, and trackable outcomes to finding the best indicators for each outcome, the sources of data, and how to collect them.
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The National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling (NFMC) program is a special federal appropriation, administered by NeighborWorks America, designed to support a rapid expansion of foreclosure intervention counseling in response to the nationwide housing crisis. This report presents the final results of the Urban Institute’s evaluation of the first two rounds of the NFMC program. Overall, the program is having its intended effect of helping troubled homeowners by improving the quality of mortgage modifications, increasing the frequency and sustainability of cures of delinquencies and foreclosures, and reducing the number of foreclosure completions for counseled homeowners.
Sparked by the publication of Leap of Reason by Mario Morino, this symposium convened a select group of twenty leaders from government, nonprofits, philanthropy, and business to discuss a challenge that has limited the collective impact of the social sector: the lack of encouragement and support in the nonprofit community for disciplined, data-driven management. The symposium explored barriers to and opportunities for making performance management more common in the social sector. Participants discussed possible solutions that would advance performance management, including the Outcome and Effective Practices Portal (now called PerformWell), an online resource for nonprofits seeking assistance with identifying indicators and tools to measure their outcomes.
Performance measurement is a tool government can use to improve program performance and address accountability. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, like many federal government programs, requires measurement of program performance to help ensure federal funds are being used to reach stated program goals. Some states have gone beyond federal requirements and added additional performance measures for their state TANF programs, making them useful laboratories for understanding the possibilities and challenges of broader and varied performance measurement in TANF. This study exploits this opportunity by gathering and synthesizing information from a set of states with more innovative performance measurement systems
This report examines federal agencies that are using data-driven performance reviews to improve agency effectiveness and efficiency. It draws from practices of agencies, including state and local governments. In their research, the authors identify three prerequisites to successful performance reviews: interested and engaged leadership; timely performance measures; staff that can analyze the measures before the performance review meetings.
Funders and nonprofit leaders are increasingly looking for information that demonstrates the achievements of community-based programs. In this results-oriented environment, the Urban Institute, The Center for What Works, and the D.C. Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation worked together to create a pilot program that developed and tested a series of outcome measures for out-of-school time (OST) programs. This brief describes the process followed and the results achieved. The pilot demonstrated that OST providers are eager to learn how to better manage their programs, keep young people engaged, and demonstrate their accomplishments. The challenge is to expand this work to all OST programs in the District and beyond.
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