The following is a preview of the Demonstrating Value Workbook. For complete worksheet features, please download the worksheet file located on the left hand side.
Table of Contents
Step 1: Define your Audiences and their Needs
Step 2: Develop a Vision of your Performance Snapshot
Step 3: Map out your Information Needs
Step 5: Define Additional Data Development
Introduction
Demonstrating Value can help you take control of the data you collect, how it is used and to communicate the performance and value of your organization, social enterprise or program. In this activity guide, you will work out what your data needs are, how they can be met, and design a ‘Performance Snapshot’ that will provide an engaging summary of the performance and value of your organization.
This process involves the following steps:
Structure of this Activity Book
The remainder of this activity book will guide you through these steps. The purpose of each step is first described, followed by specific activities for you to do. These activities are indicated with the following symbol:
Because no single person has the full picture of what’s really going on, and the information that is needed for different purposes, we recommend working through this workbook with a cross-section of people in the organization. You can do this in a workshop, a series of meetings, or through targeted consultations.
Demonstrating Value’s philosophy about measurement and guiding framework
This guide (and all other Demonstrating Value tools) are based on the premise that the information you gather in your organization has to be directly relevant to the decisions you make and be compelling for others to learn about your value. To work out what information is most useful, always keep the following simple question in mind:
'What do we want to know and show?'
In essence, you need to think about the story you want to tell and the decisions that can be better supported by data.
The two lenses shown below can help focus the answer, and are reflected in the exercises in this workbook. The first asks: ‘What information is important?' and the second asks ‘How is information used?'
Determining what information is useful is a big task, but it can be simplified by looking at what you do from three different perspectives.
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An Organizational Sustainability Perspective - What information can help you understand whether you are developing and maintaining resources to meet your purpose in the long run? |
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A Mission Perspective - What information can tell you about the ability of the organization to successfully contribute towards the social, cultural and environmental objectives set out in its mission? |
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A Business Performance Perspective - What information can tell you about the success of the organization from a financial or ‘business’ perspective? |
It is also useful to consider carefully how information will be used, by considering three ‘audience’ perspectives:
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An Operational Perspective - What information do you need to support day-to-day decisions by management and staff? For instance, what can help you stay on top of costs, quality, and delivery of your mission? |
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A Strategic Perspective - What information do you need to support strategic decisions that are often made by a governance body such as a board? This information needs to educate your audience about key trends and events that have occurred. |
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An Accountability Perspective - What information do you need to foster and maintain support of the organization? This includes support by investors, community members, employees and beneficiaries of your mission. This audience may have very limited knowledge of who you are and what you are trying to accomplish so your "story" needs to be very crisp. |
Step 1: Define your Audiences and their Needs
Your organization is important for many different groups of people, and in different ways. These are your stakeholders. Understanding who these people are and what they care about is critical for developing effective monitoring and reporting capabilities. Common stakeholders include:
- Employees
- Volunteers
- Management
- A governance body (e.g. Board of Directors)
- A parent organization (for example in the case of a social enterprise that is associated with a broader non-profit organization)
- Constituent group – those in whose name you are working
- Customers
- Investors, funders, donors
- Peers and partners
- The community at large
In this step you will name the people and groups who care about your organization (your stakeholders), the information they need, and what you’d like to improve.
Define the people who care about your organization and what they would like to know
In the table below identify your stakeholders and describe what information they need to have to do their job effectively. What does each stakeholder need to know about the organization in order to manage, plan or to provide support?
Don’t be too specific or name individual people. Rather think of the key groups of people that matter in and around the organization.
Add or delete rows as required.
| Stakeholder | Information needs - what they need to know |
| e.g. Management | Need to monitor operational issues and should be able to access additional information easily if needed to make decisions |
| e.g. Advisory board | Need to be clearly informed (in a succinct way) about what is happening with the enterprise so they can offer the best advice possible |
Assess how you can better engage your stakeholders
Look at the needs you’ve described. Where do you feel you can do a better job in meeting those needs? What's your biggest priority?
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Step 2: Develop a Vision of your Performance Snapshot
A Performance Snapshot is a communication tool that you can develop to present the performance and value of your organization to boards, investors/funders and staff. It is tailored to your needs and the audiences you want to connect with. 
The snapshot can be a printed document or an electronic 'dashboard', which allows you to actively engage with the information. This tool will give you a clear picture of your organization to help you plan and manage your day-to-day activities, demonstrate your value to others, and ensure the long-term sustainability of your organization. Examples of performance snapshots can be found at: www.demonstratingvalue.org/snapshots.
Advantages of developing a snapshot include:
- Saving valuable time finding and pulling together data and other information for reports.
- Seeing key trends and relationships in data, so you can get the most from the data you collect.
- Combining different types of information effectively to engage your audience.
The exact content and format of the Snapshot depends on the audience you want to reach and the issues that are important. The design process includes thinking about who the audience is, what decisions they are making and the messages you want to convey, and the information that can be presented (numeric, narrative, pictures, quotes, video) to tell your story. This depends on your needs and audience. For example, the layout and content for a bi-monthly board presentation might be very different from a Snapshot designed to be part of your public website to engage volunteers and donors.
In this step, you will picture what your Snapshot will look like.
Review Snapshot examples.
To help envision the look of the snapshot you’d like to develop, look at the snapshot examples on www.demonstratingvalue.org/snapshots and select examples that make sense for what you want to develop.
Describe the purpose and look of your Snapshot.
In the table below describe the audience, purpose and format of your snapshot. Examples of audiences include a board of directors, your non-profit parent (if you have one), management, employees/volunteers, your investors, specific community members, and the public at large.
To help define an audience and purpose, look at the previous step. What did you define as the biggest area for improvement?
You may be able to connect with many audiences with your Snapshot but to guide the initial development, identify a primary audience.
| Audience | Purpose | Format |
| e.g. to support on-going operational decisions, planning decisions; to develop and maintain support | e.g. What will you develop? When will it be used? What format will it be in? How often will it be updated? |
In the future we’d also like to engage the following audiences:
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Step 3: Map out your Information Needs
In this step you will develop the core content of your Performance Snapshot, based on your organization’s mission and objectives. This is done by mapping out what data and other information is most useful to you in managing, planning and communicating the value of your organization. The mapping starts with the big picture, by asking you why your organization exists and its mission and business. You will then identify what data you may currently be tracking, or could track in the future using one of two methods: An In-Depth Method or a Quick Method.
Describe why you exist and what you do.
In the boxes describe your vision, mission and business.
Your Vision Statement
A vision statement is a vivid, idealized description of how you want the community and world to change for the better as a result of your organization’s work.
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Your Mission Statement
Your mission statement describes the overall purpose of your organization including your social, environmental and/or cultural objectives and how you are working to achieve them.
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Your Business
Describe your business including what specifically you produce, sell or provide, and how your offering is unique.
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Map out your information needs.
Choose the In-depth method or Short Method below to work out what you want to show in your Performance Snapshot. The in-depth method is helpful if you have a multi-faceted organization with many different objectives and activities. It is also helpful if you would like to review organizational goals and activities at the same time that you develop a Performance Snapshot.
In-depth Method: Create Information Maps
In the tables that follow, map out what information you need to know and show in your organization based on the goals you’re pursuing. Develop information maps using the following three steps:
1. Write down your organization’s key goals. Base this on:
- Information in your strategic plans, business plans, grant applications, and in marketing and other communications materials.
- Examples of goals we’ve provided.
2. Describe the activities you’re doing to achieve these goals and your desired impact.
3. Determine what information you should be collecting to show that you are successful. Start by brainstorming around the question: ‘What do you want to know and show about this goal?’ Then write down specific indicators you’d include in your snapshot that would address what you want to know and show.
Don’t limit yourself to data and other information that you can provide right now, but describe what you’d ideally like.
Here is an example of a completed information map. Templates for your use can be found in Appendix A.
Short Method: Question Brainstorming
This method is based on identifying your information needs more directly through brainstorming around two questions and then identifying the useful data that would meet your needs. The questions are:
1. What do you want to know?
Write down the top things that you want to know about in your organization that would assist your ability to manage and plan. Think about this in terms of your organization’s social or environmental mission, business performance and organizational sustainability. Also consider your operational decisions as well as your longer term strategies.
Examples: We want to know if we are…
- improving public awareness of our program
- enhancing the quality of our service
- improving our cash-flow
- retaining staff, etc.
Your turn: We want to know if we are…
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2. What do you want to show?
Write down the key things that you want to show others about the value of your organization. Think about your organization’s strengths and how you make a difference, and be as specific as possible.
Examples. We want to show that we…
- reach people that fall through the cracks of other programs
- have highly qualified staff
- provide flexible and individualized service
- getting people out of their cars
- are increasing wildlife habitat
Your turn: We want to show that we…:
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3. Identify what is useful to track
In the previous section, you defined key information needs. In this section, come up with a list of data and other information that can address each of those needs. Don’t worry about being exhaustive and very detailed – we will refine this more in another exercise.
| Information Need | What is Useful to Track? |
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e.g. We want to show that we reach people that aren’t serviced by other programs |
Demographic information about who accesses our program (age, gender, ethnicity)
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More on how to determine what is useful to track (‘indicators’).
Both methods require you to identify data and other information that would be useful to track to address the needs you identified. This data is often referred to as an ‘indicator’. In other words, something that helps you to understand where you are, where you are going and how far you are from the goal. It may be numerical data, but it can also be a graphic, a list, a narrative, and so on. It must be a clue, a symptom, a pointer to something that is changing. In other words, indictors are bits of information that highlight what is happening in a system, both within your organization and outside of it.
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What Makes a Good Indicator?
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The following resources may be useful to look at to identify potential indicators.
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Information Source | |
| Demonstrating Value Monitoring Ideas Library: | |
| SAP Network Wiki: NetWeaver Business Intelligence (search for the Business KPI link on this page) | |
| Mr. Dashboard | |
| KPI Library | |
| Global Reporting Initiative | |
| Prove and Improve | |
| Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS) |
Step 4: Design your Snapshot
In the previous step, you identified the information that is important for you to collect and potentially show in a snapshot, based on your organization’s goals. You will now design your snapshot with the information that you collect currently, or can easily develop.
Review Snapshot Example
Look at the snapshot example that you identified earlier as your model. You may want to follow it closely or make changes that fits better with your audience and purpose.
What do you like about this snapshot?
What do you dislike?
What would you change or add?
Define the broad sections
Sketch out roughly how you’d like to organize the information in a snapshot based on the snapshot examples, your information maps or other ideas. Make sure to define the sections in which you’d group information.
Review your data sources
In your information maps, you defined indicators you’d like to include in your snapshot. In this step, you will review your data needs against what you currently have available, or need to develop. Do this in the table below, or in the Excel worksheet: Indicator Record.xls, available in the Tools and Resources section of the Demonstrating Value website.. (Using Indicator Record.xls will make it easier for you to sort and organize this information.) For each indicator, identify the snapshot section it relates to, how frequently it will be updated, any guidance on how it should be interpreted including any targets you may have, and finally its current availability and relevant data source.
Indicator Record
| Snapshot Section | Indicator | Reporting Frequency | Interpretation (e.g. why this would be collected, how it should be interpreted & targets where relevant) | Current Availability | Source |
| Business Performance | e.g. Customer retention (% of customer >3yrs) | Annually | Partially available – we collect some info, but it is not aggregated |
Customer log.xls | |
| Business Performance | e.g. Conversion rate (quote to contracts), ideally by market segment |
Quarterly | After we learn what our conversion rate is, we should develop a target that improves on it. | Not Available | N / A |
Design your Snapshot
At this stage you are ready to design your snapshot. You may want to do this directly in the program you are using (Word, Excel, or a reporting software like SAP’s Crystal Dashboard Design), or sketch out content ideas first. Design it only with the indicators that are currently available or which you can develop easily. If you don’t have the data right away, make up data and adjust it later.
For each section, think carefully about what you want to convey. Beware of presenting data for the sake of presenting data! Rather group and relate information to make it meaningful. This means thinking about:
- Decisions that the snapshot's audience will be making
- Clear messages you want to convey about your value
It can be helpful to review your information maps to remind yourself of how the indicators relate to activities, objectives and impact.
You can use figures, numbers, text, stories and even multimedia like videos and photo, to convey your message. Present it so that it can provide maximum insights to your audience. For instance, data and figures can be more powerful if you also provide some text to help your audience interpret them.
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Snapshot Design Tips
3. Present information in an engaging and appropriate way. Different types of graphs show |
Step 5: Define Additional Data Development
The snapshot which you’ve now developed is something that you can add to over time as your organization grows. In this step, you will plan out how you can develop additional indicators that you identified in your information maps for your snapshot.
Prioritize new data development
List up to 5 high priority indicators from your information maps that you’d like to develop in the next 2 years. (Refer to your Indicator Record).
If you have a hard time prioritizing, consider:
- What is of most benefit to gather? Consider this from the perspective of all stakeholders who defined the information. Are there things that are logical to do first? Are there things that would be nice to have, but are not critical?
- How much effort will it take to develop this data? Do you have a mechanism already in place, or can you develop one easily? What are the time and skills required collect, manage, and analyze the information? Will gathering these data be seen as intrusive by participants? Are there language or literacy challenges? Are you trained in the method, or will you need help from an outside consultant?
The following grid can help you prioritize.
Develop a Data Development Plan
For your priority indicators, develop a plan for how you will develop them in the tables that follow. First, list the indicator. Then propose a method for developing it. The resources described on page 13 may be helpful for researching methods for specific types of indicators. More general monitoring and research methods are also described in the next two pages. Once you’ve proposed a method, develop a concrete development timeline and designate somebody to lead its development. A comments section is included for any additional comments. Copy and paste more tables to meet the number of indicators you plan to develop.
| Indicator: | |
| Method | |
| Development Timeline | |
| Responsibility | |
| Comments | |
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Monitoring Methods
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Resources for Data Collection
What is a Survey published by the American Statistical Association:
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Appendix A: Information Map Templates
Maps are provided for three different perspectives: Mission, Business Performance and Organizational Sustainability. Mission Perspective - What information can tell you about your success in contributing towards your social, cultural and environmental mission?
| List up to 3 goals you have relating to your mission (your social, environmental and/or cultural objectives) |
Examples of goals in this area:
For examples of mission-related goals that relate to different program areas, see Appendix B. |
| Sample Activities: |
| Desired Impact: |
| What is useful to track and why? Think about what you want to ‘to know and show’ about the goals, activities and impacts you’ve described, and what you could then measure. |
Business Performance Perspective - What information can tell you about the success of the organization from a ‘business’ perspective?
Market and Customers
| List up to 3 goals you have relating to your market and customers |
Examples of customer-related goals:
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| Sample Activities: |
| Desired Impact: |
| What is useful to track and why? Think about what you want to ‘to know and show’ about the goals, activities and impacts you’ve described, and what you could then measure. |
Operations
| List up to 3 goals you have relating to your operations |
Examples of operational goals:
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| Sample Activities: |
| Desired Impact: |
| What is useful to track and why? Think about what you want to ‘to know and show’ about the goals, activities and impacts you’ve described, and what you could then measure. |
Financial Performance
| List up to 3 goals you have relating to your financial performance |
Examples of goals in this area:
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| Sample Activities: |
| Desired Impact: |
| What is useful to track and why? Think about what you want to ‘to know and show’ about the goals, activities and impacts you’ve described, and what you could then measure. |
An Organizational Sustainability Perspective - What information can help you understand how you are managing long-term risks to your organization?
| List up to 3 goals you have relating to your organizational sustainability (e.g. building strong human resources, relationships, systems, financial capital, expertise and knowledge) |
Examples of goals in this area:
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| Sample Activities: |
| Desired Impact: |
| What is useful to track and why? Think about what you want to ‘to know and show’ about the goals, activities and impacts you’ve described, and what you could then measure. |
Appendix B: Sample goals for different program areas
Sample social, environmental and cultural-related goals are provided for different program areas in the pages that follow. These are meant to help trigger ideas for your own goals, and is not an exhaustive list. If you’d like to see a goal added, contact us!
Recycling, Reducing, Reusing
- Reduce the amount of solid waste diverted from landfill
- Shift society towards zero waste by redesigning resources systems so there is no waste and all resources are reused
- Reduce net greenhouse gas emissions produce by the community
- Reduce the overall amount of materials used in society
- Deliver program/products/ services in a way that responds to different cultures and genders
- Educate the public about how to reduce household waste
- Create incentives (i.e. tax breaks, subsidies etc.) to improve waste management
Direct Habitat and/or Species Conservation and Protection
- Identify and protect key habitats for at-risk species and key habitats within the terrestrial, fresh water, and marine ecosystems
- Promote more widespread use of strategic resource management plans, ecosystem management, land use planning, and habitat stewardship
- Measure and raise awareness of the effect of human activities on habitat and different species
- Encourage implementation of regulatory measures
- Promote networking initiatives between like-minded groups and individuals
Green Building, Landscaping and Urban Design
- Create awareness about environmental, social and economical advantages of green buildings, and provide practical information on how to do build green
- Educate the community about best practices
- Promote new urbanism approaches to reduce sprawl in suburban developments
- Develop pilot projects that showcase green building practices
- Provide incentives to retrofit existing buildings to be more energy and water efficient.
- Better integrate green spaces (parks, trails, etc.) with the built environment
Local and Organic Food/ Agriculture
- Increase our capacity to grow food close to home
- Enhance local food manufacturing, wholesaling and distribution
- Improve access to healthy, culturally diverse and affordable food for everyone
- Create a food system that is consistent with ecological health
- Establish closer relationships between food producers and consumers to encourage responsible consumerism
Sustainable Energy Supply and Energy Use
- Encourage and educate community to reduce its carbon footprint
- Develop pilot projects that showcase alternative energy practices
- Provide incentives to develop alternative energy projects.
- Invest in research and development to develop energy efficient, zero carbon and renewable energy technologies
- Educate public about energy alternatives and encourage them to become responsible consumers
- Advocate for regulations, carbon taxes and mandatory cap and trade systems to reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Sustainable Fisheries
- Improve eco-system based management and sustainable exploitation of natural resources
- Reduce fishing capacity to sustainable levels and to allow over-exploited populations to recover
- Prevent overfishing, wasteful, destructive and illegal fishing to maintain a healthy dynamic population and sustainable practices in fisheries
- Educate public about destructive activities and how it impacts our economy and the environment
- Lobby for appropriate law and policy targeting unsustainable fisheries
Sustainable Forestry
- Adopt and encourage sustainable forest management practices
- Preserve wildlife, high-value conservation areas and the natural habitat while meeting our demand for natural products (i.e. pulp, paper, furniture)
- Empower communities to protect their forests and develop sustainable forestry initiatives (i.e. wildlife tours)
- Educate public to purchase sustainable forest certified goods to create incentives for unsustainable practices in forests to diminish
- Manage forests to reduce net greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere through sequestration.
Sustainable Industrial Processes
- Encourage industry to adopt green practices including: energy efficiencies improvements, renewable energy development, efficient waste management and water efficiency.
- Support the growth of businesses that provide sustainable alternatives to standard products and services.
- Encourage eco-industrial parks in which the waste of some industries are inputs for others.
- Develop, pilot and commercialize sustainable industrial technologies
Sustainable Transportation
- Reduce travel demand (e.g. telecommuting, urban design, road pricing, etc.)
- Encourage alternatives to single occupancy automobile travel.
- Educate public about alternative options such as carpooling, vanpooling and / or rideshare
- Lobby for appropriate law and policy that foster sustainable transportation.
- Develop and operate alternatives to single use car travel
- Promote sustainable freight and delivery services
Affordable Housing
- Increase access to affordable housing to increase quality of life for low-income families
- Reach the people who would benefit the most from assistance
- Increase the number of low-cost affordable housing units in the community
- Better integrate housing with other support programs such as employment training, health and education.
- Reduce quality of life for tenants through proximity to popular community destinations and public transit
Crime prevention and victim support
- Lower incidences of crime, create community resilience and improve the well-being of people affected by crime
- Effectively engage the community in defining and acting on community safety issues
- Reach the people who would benefit the most from assistance
- Educate victims about their rights and provide resources to support their needs
- Educate public about crime prevention and awareness
Income, material and food support
- Encourage low income earners, and others in poverty, to accumulate, develop, and preserve all types of assets and improve their self sufficiency
- Reach the people who would benefit the most from assistance
- Turn nobody away for emergency housing and care for people living with mental health, substance use and other challenges
- Better understand the needs of the community served.
- Connect people in need with available supports (e.g. direct income assistance, tax and other benefits they may qualify for)
Disaster/emergency prevention and control
- Educate the public to prepare for emergency situations: businesses, universities, individuals etc.
- Promote greater consideration of disaster prevention in buildings, cities and land-use design.
- Improve the capacity of the community to respond to emergency situations
- Capably respond to emergency situations 24 hours per day every day of the year.
Health - treatment, rehabilitation, support, prevention
- Educate public to take action to prevent highly infectious/contagious diseases and chronic disease
- Better connect people with available health supports
- Improve our understanding of the needs of the population we serve.
- Reach the people who would benefit the most from assistance
- Effectively engage the community in defining and acting on community health issues
- Provide no cost or affordable health services to those who are not currently accessing services.
Education - basic, specialized, advanced
- Effectively engage the community in defining and acting on education issues
- Reach the people who would benefit the most from assistance
- Improve our understanding of the needs of the population we serve
- Improve literacy rates in the community.
- Provide educational opportunities to marginalized individuals and families.
- Encourage employers to invest in their employees through advanced education opportunities at work
Community Revitalization and Economic Development
- Increase community inclusion and encourage establishment of mixed-income neighborhoods
- Generate supportive and collaborative action to ____________
- Diversify the local economy
- Develop sustainable jobs
- Revitalize shared community space and amenities
Advocacy and Legal Assistance
- Meet legal and advocacy needs of vulnerable populations
- Connect individuals with right resources
- Educate elders about their rights and defend their respected presence in the community
Life skills, Personal Development
- Improve people’s access to the resources, benefits and financial supports necessary to participate fully and with dignity in community activities.
- Enhance personal and work-related skills.
- Increase the financial resources of individuals necessary to participate fully and with dignity in community activities
- Help individuals develop healthy social networks that may include personal and family relationships, as well as community supports.
- Empower individuals to change patterns of behavior that result in harm to themselves or to other people.
Promotion/Preservation of History, Culture and/or Language
- Increase the cultural awareness of others outside of our cultural group
- Increase the strength and practice of our culture in our community
- Increase opportunities for community members to participate in cultural events
- Protect our heritage through landscape/urban conservation
- Raise the importance of historical values in the development and identity of our community
Performing and Visual Art
- Increase employment and income levels in arts and culture
- Empower community members to express themselves creatively.
- Stimulate interest and support by the public in arts and culture
- Recognize and award talent in arts and culture
- Enrich public and private spaces with art
Supportive Employment/ Employment Training
- Provide training and/or employment to individuals who face barriers to employment
- Offer career advancement and nurture leadership potential
- Provide adequate and effective supervision and support
- Retain and sustain a stable workforce
- Adequately accommodate employees’ preferences, skills and capabilities