Understanding Nonprofit Metrics for Grants

Like any for-profit business, nonprofit organizations must have a response to this four-word expression when posed by funders: “Show me the numbers.” In other words, they need to see the metrics behind your initiatives.

The funders you rely on for support want to see proof that their investment in your cause has the potential to generate measurable outcomes—showing metrics is the best way to demonstrate such evidence.

But the field of metrics is a vast one and understanding how to show the right numbers is essential to building trust with funders. If you can’t demonstrate your potential through metrics, then funders and foundations may be more reluctant or averse to working with you. 

This article will break down the fundamentals of metrics, including why they matter, the type of metrics you demonstrate, and how to select and present these numbers.   

What are Nonprofit Metrics?

Nonprofit metrics are measurable data points that reveal the performance outcomes of your organization’s initiatives or operations. They’re the numbers that give you and funders insights about the impact of your programs or services, telling what’s working versus what’s not. They also serve several key functions that can determine your eligibility to secure a new grant or obtain recurring funding. That includes: 

• Helping Funders Evaluate Your Impact—Funders want to see proof of their investment making a difference. Metrics help them see how your initiatives are creating the change they care about.
• Demonstrating Your Efficiency—Metrics also illustrate how efficiently you use your resources, which may include staff time and funds.
• Showing Your Nonprofit’s Alignment With the Funder—Tracking certain metrics can also reiterate how your work supports the outcomes funders hope to achieve. 

There are various types of metrics (which we’ll explore later), but they all fall into one of two categories: quantitative and qualitative. 

• Quantitative metrics involve numbers. That may include numerical data regarding budgets, number of people served and percentage increases or decreases.
• Qualitative metrics detail observations that answer the why’s and how’s of data. These metrics may include stories, reviews, ratings, or opinions. 

Together both data classes help paint a picture about the impact your initiatives are having, for both you and your grantmakers to see. 

Key Categories of Nonprofit Metrics

Now there are two main categories of metric data, but they can be further subdivided. For the sake of nonprofits, it’s helpful to categorize metrics into four main categories—inputs, outputs, outcomes, and impact. All four of these categories reveal key aspects about your organization’s performance and potential. 

Inputs

Inputs refer to the resources you invest into your initiatives. They’re the foundational components that make your work actionable. Examples of inputs include:

• Number of staff members and volunteers involved
• Number of volunteer hours contributed to a program or service
• Total budget or funds spent on a program or service
• Supplies, equipment, or facilities used to facilitate a program or service

Tracking inputs helps you show funders that you have the ability and resources to manage your programs in an orderly fashion. 

Outputs 

Outputs refer to the direct, tangible byproducts of your activities. They are among the simplest metrics to count and report. Examples of metrics include:

• Meals served to recipients
• Workshops or training sessions delivered to participants
• Brochures and educational materials distributed to intended targets
• Number of counselling sessions provided to participants

Outputs provide funders with the immediate results of their investments. The caveat with outputs, however, is they don’t show the overall effect of your programs or services. For example, an organization may deliver 200 counselling sessions, but that doesn’t guarantee the instruction changed or impacted them. 

Outcomes

Outcomes refer to measurable changes your created. These are “money” metrics for funders, the numbers that show your initiatives changed your community for the better. Examples of outcomes include:

• Percentage of students who’s reading scores improved after you tutored them
• Number of families relocated from homeless shelters to stable housing
• Rise in job placements or employment rates among program graduates
• Reduction in disease occurrence in a specific demographic or population

Common ways to track outcomes include using pre- and post-program assessments, follow-up surveys, or longitudinal studies.

Impact 

Impact refers to the long-term, system (or institutional) change that your work produces. Impact metrics are challenging to measure, but they’re the most convincing data points when it comes to showing the effect your initiatives had on a community. Examples of impact metrics include: 

• Widespread reduction in poverty rates for a given community
• Increased graduation rates across a school board or district
• Reduced crime rates in a neighborhood
• Generational improvements in health or education for a specific community or population 

Impact metrics demonstrate to funders how your efforts help and improve entire communities, not just a few individuals. These are the types of numbers that funders desire most, and positive impact metrics can lead to long relationships and recurrent funding. 

Examples of Common Grant-Ready Metrics

In a previous post, we discussed grant-readiness and what that entails for nonprofits. An overlooked aspect of being grant-ready is having and showing meaningful metrics to provide funders with a glimpse into your nonprofit’s potential. Presenting these data points can strengthen your proposal. 

Grant Ready Metrics to Present

• People Served Demographics (With Demographics or Geography)—Funders care not just about the number of people you impact, but also who they are and where they live. Such data includes their age, gender, ethnicity, or location, all of which can demonstrate your reach and relevance.
• Pre- and Post-Program Assessments—Before and after data of your program is a simple yet powerful way to highlight the changes it creates. That often includes increases or decreases in numbers or percentages.
• Employment Placement or Housing Stability—These are highly specific metrics, but reaching certain milestones in these regards can edify housing and employment initiatives.
• Return on Investment (ROI) or Cost-per-Outcome—Metrics demonstrating cost-effectiveness are some of the most highly sought-after data points for funders since they highlight how well you use your (and their) resources.
• Satisfaction Ratings or Testimonials—Qualitative data such as ratings and testimonials serve as a form of storytelling that makes plain data more compelling and human. 

How to Choose the Right Metrics for Your Organization 

The big question you might have now is what metrics you should focus on and present. After all, there are various data types, but not all share the same weight or relevance to funders. 

That said, choosing the right key performance indicators (KPIs) is part art and part science, and you want to select the right ones. The metrics you choose can mean the difference between securing grant funding you’ve been seeking or having to resubmit your grant proposals. 

Align Metrics With Your Mission and Program Goals 

The first step to choosing meaningful performance metrics is to solidify your purpose. Remind yourself what change you’re specifically looking to create. With that purpose in mind, you can start choosing metrics that can measure the activities that will help you implement such changes. 

For example, if you’re looking to increase employment rates in a specific community, you can track the number of job applicants, placements, and turnover at certain workplaces affiliated with your organization’s employment programs. 

Consider What Funders in Your Sector About Most

A relatively straightforward way to know what KPIs matter to funders is to check what they prioritize. Check grant guidelines, funder websites, and reports from similar organizations. Funders often identify what metrics they look for, so all potential grantees should consider them. For example, if your nonprofit is the education space, a funder may prioritize post-program literacy scores and grading to showcase efficacy. 

Be Realistic About What You Can Track Consistently and Accurately

Some nonprofits make the mistake of overpromising what they can track just to increase their funding opportunities. Don’t fall into this trap. Only commit to the KPIs you can actually measure and provide. This calls for a review of your capabilities, technology, and staff members, ensuring that you focus on metrics that’s within your wheelhouse to deliver. 

Use Existing Evaluation Frameworks of Logic Models

The use of specific frameworks such as logic models can help you establish relationships between your activities and resources, and their adjacent metrics (i.e. inputs, outcomes, impacts). These tools can simplify the decision-making needed to choose metrics, so that your KPIs align with the funder's requirements. 

Tips for Communicating Metrics in Grant Applications

Aside from collecting meaningful data, you also need to present that data in a meaningful way. Stakeholders and board members at foundations (or other grantmakers) may miss out on your valuable insights if your methods of data presentation are confusing. That said, well-structured and clearly communicated metrics resonate with grantmakers and makes your grant writing more compelling. 

Use Data to Tell Stories

Yes, numbers grab funders’ attention. However, stories put those numbers into context, make them more meaningful, and demonstrate their real-life human impact. One way to do so is by pairing stats with real-world anecdotes or case studies. For example, if you’re sharing how your health education program reduced the rate of a particular disease, you can mention a story (or a few stories) of at-risk individuals who have remained disease-free. 

Include Charts or Visuals

The human brain can process visuals in 13-150 milliseconds, versus 3.75-7.5 seconds for text (based on reading a 25-word sentence). That means we can process an image 6-600 times faster than we do text. 

That’s why visuals such as charts, graphs, or infographics are crucial when presenting your metrics. They make your data easy to understand (when designed well), and more engaging too. 

Show How You Use Metrics for Learning and Improvement

Funders are also mindful of how you will use metric data to improve your programs and services. Demonstrating how you will use these numbers to further improve your community impact is key to sustaining a grant program in the short- and long-term. So make sure to explain how you analyze your KPIs, make program adjustments based on these numbers, and share these lessons with your team members. 

Tools and Resources for Tracking Metrics

With modern technology at your disposal, tracking metrics is easier than before. There are plenty of tools and software solutions that help you track everything from costs to the retention rate of a program, not to mention, templates and tools which can help you automate data collection. Creating the right tech stack can help make grant reporting more manageable. 

CRM and Grant Management Software 

• Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud—A comprehensive CRM for tracking donors, volunteers, and program data.
• Bloomerang—A platform for donor management and reporting. 

Spreadsheets and Dashboards

• Google Sheets and Excel—Staple cloud-based tools in the Google Suite that allow for easy tracking and data analysis.
• Tableau Public—A business intelligence (BI) tool that helps you visualize metrics for reports and presentations. 

Surveys and Evaluation Tools

• SurveyMonkey—A user-friendly tool for gathering participant feedback and survey data, especially, pre/post-program data.
• Google Forms—A free, simple tool available in the Google suite used for collecting survey data. 

Third-Party Evaluators or Consultants

• Human Evaluators—You can also hire an external evaluator or consultant to help you prepare unbiased analytics reports. 

Behind Every Successful Grant is Data

Nonprofit metrics are the glue that hold your grantseeking efforts together. They rationalize your initiatives, giving funders a reason to fund and support them. Ultimately, they provide a pathway to helping you create stronger programs and services, not to mention better partnerships with funders. By selecting, consistently tracking, and visualizing the right key performance indicators, you’ll persuade funders to give ongoing support to your cause. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: What if our organization is new and doesn’t have much data yet?

A: Start by tracking what you can. You can use pilot results and then share your plan for data measurement in the future. Funders see honesty in a positive light, so don’t hesitate to share your limitations but also, your commitment to growth. 

Q: How often should we update our metrics?

A: Aim to update your metrics on a quarterly or monthly basis as this can help you identify patterns faster and allow for more timely adjustments. However, annual reviews and updates can suffice as well. 

Q: Can qualitative data really make a difference?

A: Yes, it absolutely can. Stories, reviews, and opinions can give numbers more depth and context, making them more relatable from a human perspective.