| Site FAQs |
| Written by Administrator | |
| Tuesday, 20 November 2007 | |
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How do I get my nonprofit included in socialmarkets? If you are a U.S.-based non-profit organization, and are willing and able to report on the outcomes of your work, you are a good candidate for socialmarkets. Please read below for more details:  Your non-profit must have 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Service code (or be fiscally sponsored by a 501(c)(3) organization). Also, your headquarters must be located in the United States. Step #2 Your non-profit should be prepared to report your outcomes (e.g., your results / how your programs have changed lives). This means that you must be prepared to define and communicate clear, measurable goals for your programs, and share how well (or poorly) you perform in meeting them. Step #3 Visit this link: http://www.urban.org/center/cnp/projects/outcomeindicators.cfm for a list of outcome indicators (which help you track and measure your programs’ results). Some of the indicators may apply to your projects. If not, look for the issue area most similar to yours and see if your logic model can be adapted to theirs. (Note: if you don't have a logic model yet, you're probably not ready to be part of socialmarkets. Go to a website like this where you can learn about and build a logic model.) Step #4 Work with your internal staff to select the outcome indicators you want to share with the socialmarkets community, and determine how long it will take you to produce the outcomes you say your organization can generate. We ask for a progress report every 3-6 months, as well as a complete outcomes report at the end of your program. In general, we recommend shorter programs (18 months or less), but we understand that is not always practical. Step #5 Contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it about participating on our website! What do you mean by outcomes? And what is a logic model? An outcome is a desired result for a program. For example, with youth tutoring, a desired outcome may be improved academic achievement. Outcomes are the raw materials used to measure a project’s effectiveness and performance. We translate our evaluation of its outcomes into a single number we call the SROI or social return on investment. The better a non-profit organization's outcomes, the higher its SROI will be. A logic model is a flow chart that a non-profit organization develops when it starts a new program. Think of it as a non-profit form of a business plan. A logic model provides detail on a non-profit's goals, how it plans to accomplish those goals, and the intermediate steps in between. Go to this website for more information on logic models. I'm worried about how bad results will look? We want non-profit organizations to establish long-term relationships with socialmarkets. You may have bad results in one year, but we're confident that non-profits can improve their programs and eventually deliver great results to donors. Our percentage change model for estimating SROI actually gives a short-term advantage to non-profits with less-than-ideal outcomes. |
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| Last Updated ( Saturday, 23 February 2008 ) |
