Why Your Organization Needs to Share Metrics as Well as Anecdotes

While teaching a university course on nonprofit leadership, we were addressing the importance of return on investment (ROI) for nonprofits. That is, how funders who make large investments in a nonprofit expect measurements that indicate their assistance is having an impact. One student, who was a nonprofit executive director, pushed back, saying that even her major donors were “just fine with stories, pictures, and anecdotal evidence” of their program’s effectiveness. Therefore, there was no need for metrics or ROI. When I asked how large a “major gift” was, she answered, “$1,000.”