Is your work actually helping, what kind of effect is it having, and how are you communicating it? These are all questions 30 nonprofit professionals from Austin, Bastrop, San Antonio, and Waco addressed while participating in ACC’s new Certificate in Measuring Social Impact & Effective Storytelling.
The certificate program is a joint initiative between Nonprofit Austin at ACC and the Carl C. Anderson Sr. & Marie Jo Anderson Foundation. The Foundation provided $60,000 for course development and tuition for the inaugural class, who were all Anderson Foundation grant recipients.
The new certificate program helps direct service providers measure the social impact of their work. An ongoing commitment to measurement allows nonprofits to determine what works and what doesn’t so they can improve services over time.
Participants learned how to embed social impact evaluation into the culture and operations of a nonprofit, as opposed to a task that is entirely outsourced to consultants.
“The entire team plays a role from the executive director to the communications director and frontline staff,” says Barry Silverberg, Nonprofit Austin executive director. “It helps those enrolled in the Certificate to reorient their focus from measurement as a compliance activity or ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ assessment of effectiveness to evaluation as the foundation for organizational learning and program improvement.”
The next class will launch in January 2025. It is open to anyone interested. Registration begins in October 2024.
Interested parties should sign up for Nonprofit Austin’s newsletter at nonprofitaustin.org or contact Barry Silverberg at [email protected].