A common assumption of the “new philanthropy” is that “social capital markets” will separate effective from ineffective organizations by forcing nonprofits to compete with each other for scarce resources, allocated according to standardized criteria. I think it’s
How can philanthropy and government partner to help nonprofits marshal evidence of their programs’ effectiveness?
By setting high evidentiary standards and funding programs that meet them, government can create a powerful incentive for nonprofits to strengthen their
In our experience, an independent evaluation benefits an organization in other important ways in addition to assessing a program externally. The data collection and analysis an evaluation requires provide an opportunity and means to improve a program
In an ideal world, an experimental evaluation or randomized controlled trial (RCT), which compares participants in a program to a randomly assigned control group, provides the highest standard of proof and level of confidence that a program
Most nonprofits, including a majority of the Clark Foundation’s grantees, do not yet have convincing quantitative evidence of their programs’ effectiveness and lack the organizational capacity to muster it. That is why we invest heavily in
