Theory of Change (TOC) is a method for planning, participation, and evaluation used to promote social change in organizations.
Created at the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change in the 1990s and popularized by Carol Weiss, the term TOC outlines a series of desired and actual outcomes and linked rationales—all of which flow in chronological order.
Companies, investment managers, and nonprofits are under increasing pressure to improve their social & environmental impact. Doing so also means getting better at measuring and reporting their performance in a defensible, rigorous way.
These impact-related ‘pain points’ are strikingly similar across the public and private sectors and civil society but are sometimes expressed in different ways:
Corecentra recently attended this year’s Data for Impact Conference, which highlighted just how integral data has become to all facets of impact management & assessment.
The annual conference, which included impact-conscious partners from across the country, is part of the Forward Fest, the Wisconsin-based showcase of technological innovation and entrepreneurship. As expected, this year’s virtual conference brought together some of the brightest minds in data and social impact.
An organization looking to standardize its data should consider the following four steps as a guideline for their process. As organizational needs vary, the specific implementation of these stages may change, but the basic procedure should remain the same.
To maximize the value of data, it’s critical that organizations implement an effective and intuitive data standardization strategy. Good data management is a necessity for modern organizations and a prerequisite for growth & expansion.
Regardless of what the new normal will look like post-COVID, the pandemic has already induced deep shifts in the way organizations approach remote work. While some companies are still grappling with how long and to what extent they will permit remote work, other companies (Twitter and Facebook among them) have made remote work a permanent option.
Data is the fuel of the digital economy. But the benefits of good data extends well beyond businesses: data is essential to the productivity and success of modern for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Unfortunately, while 90% of nonprofits collect some data, “almost half say they aren’t fully aware of the ways data can (and does) impact their work.”
To better understand the applications of data for socially-impactful organizations, social sector experts have categorized data into two types: “data for action” and “data for impact.”
