Evaluation Makes Everyone Better

The ideal outcome of measuring outcomes—especially crucial for human service nonprofits—is that it can spur everyone to do better, and sometimes it actually works out that way, as this article from Governing reports.

An excerpt.

“Here's something that just about every state and local public official is loath to admit: Comparison is a powerful motivator. States don't like being ranked, and localities hate being rated (unless of course, they're sitting pretty in the top five). The fact is, though, those types of rankings and ratings get people's and the media's attention, and they spur action.

“If anyone doubts the power of comparison, consider just one example: When former Governor Tim Kaine took office in Virginia in 2006, the state's ranking on finding permanent, stable placements for kids in foster care was 50th, aka dead last. Kaine didn't care for the distinction one bit, which is why the state's poor national standing ultimately led to a sweeping overhaul of how the state does children and family services, a transformation initiative led by his wife, First Lady Anne Holton.

"When we saw the data we realized that what we knew anecdotally to be the problem was in fact persistent and pervasive," says Kaine; "that Virginia was a clear outlier, with fewer discharges from foster care to permanency of any state."

“That single stat led to an ambitious, multiyear overhaul of the state's children and family services system resulting in impressive gains in areas that include adoption rates, decreases in incidences of repeat maltreatment of kids and a decrease in kids in foster care overall.

“The effort has been so successful that the new Republican administration in Richmond is picking up the standard. "We hope to expand transformation to every agency that touches at-risk children, including juvenile justice, mental health and the office of special education," says Bill Mims, former attorney general and co-chair of Governor Bob McDonnell's transition team. "We would hope that we'll see the same improvement in results in all those areas that we've been seeing in foster care."

“That transformative power of comparison is exactly why every state official in the child welfare and public assistance world ought to check out two new reports compiled and published by the Council of State Governments in partnership with the Urban Institute, and funded by an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant. By way of full disclosure, I was part of the 24-member steering committee that helped guide the comparative performance measurement effort. The idea was to choose three significant areas of state policy, and then focus on key performance measures in those areas, resulting in state-by-state comparisons of performance. The three areas that the CSG steering committee picked were transportation, child welfare and public assistance.”