Is Your Big Picture Holding You Back?

He said many nonprofits do a poor job of measuring outcomes for four reasons:

1. Funders rarely support the full cost of running programs, let alone tracking outcomes.
2. It is much easier to focus on what you do than on results.
3. Social services often are conceived of so broadly that measuring outcomes may be dismissed as "narrowly reductionistic."
4. The pressure and challenges of day-to-day work don't allow time to devote to tough, analytical thinking.

Hunter asked attendees to consider the unlikely goals offered by programs that aim to get people off of welfare and into jobs and then don't provide job-based coaching and support even though it's known that job retention is the biggest challenge faced by the people they serve. Or foster care programs that stop supporting kids when they "age out" of the system at age 18 or 21, exactly the time when they need intensive support.