The Charitable Measurement Initiative: 01/02/08

Welcome to the Charitable Measurement Initiative!

The Charitable Measurement Initiative is a collaboration of people and organizations that are deeply committed to the belief that social change organizations can mobilize significant new and better investment if they are able to implement a measurement reporting framework that credibly communicates their real impact to donors. The Initiative is directed by GiveIndia and calls on the resources of pilot program partners Keystone Accountability, Global Giving, and New Philanthropy Capital, as well as many other organizations committed to social welfare.

The process began when we decided to combine our previous experiences in humanitarian and charitable work with our current work as corporate lawyers. We sought to find a group in India that was looking to incorporate capital markets/securities concepts in reporting and analysis to create more valuable and transparent information.

Thankfully, we were put in touch with GiveIndia. Give discussed the idea of running a pilot program implementing the Keystone framework developed by Keystone Accountability to see if we could help organizations more clearly articulate the outcomes they wanted and better communicate their actual results to donors. This was exactly what we were hoping to do and gladly agreed to donate a year of time to making this work.

While we were in London, Give put us in touch with Keystone Accountability and New Philanthropy Capital. After many meetings throughout the spring and summer, we arrived at our joint creation – the Charitable Measurement Initiative – and a plan as to how we would seek to help NGOs in India become more transparent, responsive, and efficient, as well as help donors become more engaged and involved.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Domestic Support for CMI's Reports

As many know, Give supports the Mumbai Marathon and helps connect runners to charities to raise a great deal of money. One of the runners looking to donate substantial funding has come to us for advice and we instructed him on the Keystone framework. He passed this on to another runner and now we have our first two sizeable donations.

What is important is what we learned about the reports. We tried a modified memo and then the report we will provide for each group. As we suspected, our report is much more valuable and donors seem to appreciate the diligence and advice it reflects. They see the benefit of the Keystone methodology, but only after we explain it to them and show them why it is meaningful and more useful then other things available.

We will track donor engagement and use of these metrics to see if they truly appreciate the method or rather are more interested in the diligence we provide.