"Most community organizations will admit they do not currently "work with" as much as they "work for" their communities and program participants. The relationship between program participants and those organizations is most often the one-way relationship of the top-down, provider-knows-best Charitable Model, rather than a real give and take. But if the party to whom a provider organization holds itself accountable is the person whose individual life that organization is affecting, that relationship will logically be quite different. The same often holds true for an organization's interactions with the community. "Going out to the community" is more often a euphemism for "asking for support" (and most often financial support) than it is a real dialogue about determining how to create a better future together."

A dashboard is a way to measure your progress toward a goal, and a great way to engage your key donors, board members, and volunteers in staying connected with your progress. A traditional use for dashboards is to keep your board and staff on track, like these from Jeanne Bell and Jan Masaoka over at blueavocado.org, and to celebrate successes or keep an eye on trouble spots.

Dashboards can also be used to publicly measure your fundraising progress in real time, like this one at Forge. Or, they can be customer service dashboards, like the local hospital that has the estimated emergency room wait time constantly updated on signage and its website, with the slogan "Minutes Matter."

Dashboards can even be used to recruit volunteers. For instance, I know of a local Habitat for Humanity and a local Meals on Wheels organization that use Twitter in real-time to recruit for volunteer vacancies when they are building homes or need drivers. "We still need 10 volunteers for Saturday who know how to wield a hammer" or "We have a vacant route on Wednesday at lunch time. Can you give up your lunch hour this week?" They also post updates when the routes are filled or they've got new volunteers signing up.

Be creative! In what ways could you use dashboards to keep your audiences updated and engaged in real-time about your progress?

In November, 2009, Root Cause released a 76-page free guide, "Building a Performance Management System: Using Data to Accelerate Social Impact." The guide is practical, works for any size organization, walks us through the process step by step, and provides us with great sample tools including management and program dashboards that will save a ton of time, especially if you're just getting started in this area. So, today's tip is "Go get it, read it, and share it with your team!"

Download a free pdf, here.

In "The 21st Century Potential of Constituency Voice," a 42-page report by a Project of the Alliance for Children & Families, United Neighborhood Centers of America, and Keystone Accountability, authors David Bonbright, David Campbell, and Linda Nguyen detail why current feedback processes in nonprofit organization may not be work and the opportunities for improvement. Read a short excerpt below.

...[P]eople are not like water taps. You cannot simply turn them on and off and expect an even flow of water at just the right temperature. Quality feedback needs to be cultivated with care. And it needs to be acted upon. Applied to human services, this approach involves three simple steps. First, before seeking feedback, establish expectations around it. What is expected of the client? What is expected of the provider? If there is a third-party feedback specialist involved, is it absolutely clear what its role is? Second, in gathering data keep it simple and easy for the provider of feedback. Third, once feedback is collected make sure that you meet the expectations set up at the outset. This will usually involve three things: (a) reporting back what you heard in the feedback and what you propose to do about it; (b) make recommended improvements in services; and, (c) sustained mutually accountable learning dialogues with constituents outside formal feedback activities.

Read the full report here.

What's your experience with customer feedback? Are you incorporating into your evaluation process? If so, how? Log in and share your thoughts!

Are you just getting started measuring program outcomes? Do we have the resource for you! The Outcome Indicators Project is a joint project of the Urban Institute and The Center for What Works, and they've created outcomes measurement templates designed to put you on the right track in the following 14 areas:

• Adult Education and Family Literacy
• Advocacy
• Affordable Housing
• Assisted Living
• Business Assistance
• Community Organizing
• Emergency Shelter
• Employment Training
• Health Risk Reduction
• Performing Arts
• Prisoner Re-entry
• Transitional Housing
• Youth Mentoring
• Youth Tutoring

Get the files in pdf, word, or excel format here.