Bridging the Gap Between Scientific Data and Stories worth reading.

There are two main parallels of impact narrative in the social sector.

1. Narrative — beautiful pictures, stories and video of success. This narrative normally depicts outliers (drastic suffering or life transformation). It makes us emotional, it tugs on our heart strings, it’s managed by the marketing department.
2. Academic & scientifically Rigorous study — this often takes the form of a randomized control trial — to over simplify one group receives your service and another doesn’t you study the changes between the two.

When you’re a small-startup or non-profit that is bootstrapped and hyper focused on growth — balancing rigor and narrative can help you measure, inform and grow your service.

Why balancing is beneficial to operational excellence.

Using data to inform your operations is rare in the nonprofit sector. There are few organizations doing it incredibly well (Crisis Text Line, Possible Health, Acumen, One Acre Fund). Often, non-profits only engage in impact evaluation, or use data to inform their operations when it is required by a funder.

We believe, when you’re a start-up social enterprise/non-profit you would be focused on using data to understand and quantify the value you’re creating for your beneficiaries. That doesn’t mean outputs like # of people helped or # of services delivered — it’s about diving deeper to quantify and understand how we can improve quality of life. Does giving people more solar lamps lead to increased ability to your homework, and therefore improved school attendance? Does deworming lower chronic illness? Knowing the value of your product or service shouldn’t hinge on a multimillion dollar study, the same way it doesn’t hinge on # of people helped. Impact data is about understanding how we’re moving the needle to end survival mode living.

Appendix

1. Randomized Control Trial — there are many other forms of academic studies — pipeline study, longitudinal that don’t involve denying services to beneficiaries. An RCT is often considered the gold standard.
2. Great article on vanity metrics vs. impact metrics, from Looker CEO, Lloyd Tab.