Blog Series- An In-Depth Look At Common Segments Of Grant Proposals Part 4: Measurement/Outcomes And Evaluation – Are Numbers Set In Stone?

Ellen Stone

 
Most grant proposals are divided into sections. Each section serves a specific purpose in convincing funders that your organization is a strong match for their funding priorities, a good steward of their dollars, and is meeting a critical need in your community. This blog series will break down the grant proposal and look at each piece individually – its purpose, the message that piece conveys to the funder, and the best practices for sharing that information. We’ll look at:


  1. Cover Letters – What to Include and What to Leave Out
  2. Organization History and Background – Developing a Narrative that Appeals to Funders
  3. Need Statements – Making the Case for Your Organization
  4. Measurement/Outcomes and Evaluation – Are Numbers Set in Stone? (this post ?)
  5. Presentation of Budgets for Grant Applications
  6. Preparing Your Grant Proposal Packet for Submission


The Statement of Need and Proposal are the heart of your grant –they tug at the heartstrings and make the funder want to support your organization. But every funder receives far more requests for funding than they have the finances to support. There simply isn’t enough money to go around. A substantial part of the decision about where grant dollars will go comes down to which organization is providing the best investment opportunity. That is the question you are answering in the Measurement/Outcomes and Evaluation sections of the grant proposal.


How will you measure the successful progress and outcomes of your program? When funders ask this question, their goal is to learn what data you use to determine success and how you gather that data. The easy answer when providing measurements is to share the quantity of activities/services your organization provided. This data is easy to track – the number of meals served, children who participated, or patients served.


Measuring outcomes is messier – it takes more time, often requires tracking participants over time, and isn’t entirely within your control. Some program participants may not stay in the program long enough to measure an outcome, some may not respond to your survey after leaving the program, and others may only accomplish a portion of the change you hoped for.


Measuring program success may include:


1.Sharing the tools/tests you use to measure progress and your goal for program participants. Examples for students include your state’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment for early childhood education programs or the SAT for secondary education. This type of measurement produces objective, quantitative data. Your organization may set a goal related to the tool/test such as:

  • After implementation of the Dinosaur Curriculum, 100% of ABC Child Development Center 5 year olds will be assessed socially and emotionally “ready for kindergarten” on the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment. – The data collection tool is the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment
  • Students who participate in the after school SAT preparation course will improve their test scores by at least 100 points. – The data collection tool is the SAT


If you use this type of quantitative data, you need to refer to the impact of these metrics in other sections of the grant. Funders need to understand why it is important for students to be socially and emotionally “ready for kindergarten” or how improving the SAT score by 100 points influences a high school student’s college application.


2. Tracking your organization’s progress in completing the tasks laid out in the grant proposal. Remember: don’t just track your organization’s activities. Show the funder how their support and your organization’s activities directly impact outcomes for your participants.

  • On end-of-season surveys, kitchen staff will indicate meal preparation time decreased by at least 20% after installation of new stoves, cooking range, griddle, and food processor. – Data collection tool is the end-of-season survey of staff members; funded item is the new kitchen equipment.
  • Educators report 80% of students demonstrated comprehension of science modules covered during their visit to new exhibits at the Museum of Arts and Sciences. – Data collection tool is the educator survey; funded items are the new exhibits.


3. Tracking your participants’ progress in achieving the goals laid out in the grant proposal without using a formal tool/test. Participant-centered outcomes focus on measurable outcomes in the lives of those you serve. These measurements demonstrate meaningful change that has long-term value for the individual or community, and this phrasing can maximize the impact of your grant proposal.

  • 25 families will obtain and retain housing that meets their full cost of living and accessibility needs. – Data collection tool would be a client exit survey and a client follow-up survey to ensure the “retain” standard is met.
  • 80% of employment services clients will obtain a position that is sufficient to meet their basic household needs. 75% of employment services clients who obtain a position will remain employed after one year. – Data collection tool for the first goal would be a client exit survey. Data collection tool for the second goal could be a client or employer follow-up survey.


How will your organization evaluate the success of your program?  When funders ask this question, they want to know if you actively seek feedback about your programs and services from various constituents. Other phrasing of this question may include:


  • How does your organization conduct qualitative evaluations?
  • How does your organization share stories, successes, or lessons learned?


Funders want to know that your organization leadership is actively listening. Responses to this question should include multiple sources of program evaluation including:


1.Constituent Feedback – End-of-season evaluations, annual program surveys, exit surveys, workshop evaluations – every program and service you provide should include a way to collect feedback from your constituents. Evaluations should include opportunities for constituents to answer questions like:

  • What went well, and what areas of the program/service could be improved?
  • Did the program/service help you make progress toward the defined goals the organization has established? (i.e. did the client obtain a job that meets his/her household needs?)
  • Did the program/service meet your need(s)?
  • What programs/services could the organization offer to better support clients in the future?


2. Employee Feedback – Your staff team is critical to the success of your program/service. They are the ones in the classroom, working with the animals, preparing the meals, sitting in meetings with clients, or doing the specific tasks of your organization. You need to know if they are happy in their jobs, if they have the proper training and support to do their work, and if your constituents are giving them feedback that aligns with your program goals.

  • What aspects of programs/services are running well, and what areas could be improved?
  • Did you receive sufficient training to do your job? Did you have sufficient support from administration/supervisors to do your job?
  • What is the greatest challenge to successfully serving clients in your position?
  • How could our organization do more to accomplish our mission and meet the needs of our clients?


3. Volunteer Feedback – Volunteers are a wonderful asset for nonprofit organizations. They may supplement your workforce, complete needed repairs and maintenance on your facilities, or raise needed funds for your organization. Seek feedback from your volunteers to learn about their experience, encourage them to return, and maximize your ability to engage more volunteers in the future. The same questions raised above apply to volunteers.


4. Escalation of Concerns – We all hope that programs run smoothly, but challenges are part of program management. When you write about evaluation in grants, include a statement about how your organization addresses concerns raised by participants or employees outside the evaluation process. Active listening and engagement should be a continual process in your organization. Funders want to know that organizations will take action to address challenges immediately and integrate new policies, procedures, or practices based on what they learned from those challenges.


What happens if we don’t hit our numbers from a grant application?


This is one of the most common questions I hear from clients when we are writing grant applications. Putting the goal down it writing seems to set it in stone. This is a myth. Much like a budget, the outcome measures in a grant proposal are a forecast. They are your best guess at what your program will achieve with sufficient funding. That does not mean every outcome measure will hit the goal.


When writing outcome measures, it’s important to set your goals based on previous experience at your organization. At the start of the grant year, you should expect the program to hit the goal. However, if the program doesn’t hit the goal, you need to provide the funder with an explanation in your grant report. For example:


If you currently have 100 children in your after school program and 25 of them are in a literacy program, you can forecast based on existing numbers and costs that a grant of $10,000 for a second literacy coach will allow 20 more kids to participate in the literacy program. Your outcome measure forecasts improved reading levels for 90% of the kids in the entire program, but only 80% of the kids hit the goal.


When you write your final report to the funder, you need to provide an explanation for why you didn’t hit the target – it’s possible the new literacy coach didn’t start as quickly as anticipated, maybe it was a really snowy winter and your program was cancelled more days than anticipated, or perhaps there was a higher rate of student turnover in the program this year. Provide a reasonable explanation for the variance, and the funder is unlikely to raise an issue with your grant report.


If you know far in advance that you won’t meet the outcome measure, contact the funder. This is a common issue with capital campaigns. Your organization may not reach the financial goals of the campaign and need to delay building or change the plan. Contact the funder to discuss the new plan. Most funders that commit funds for capital campaigns are willing to make adjustments in these situations.



The Measurement/Outcomes and Evaluation sections of the grant proposal are your opportunity to convince the funder that each dollar has a substantial impact on your constituents, and that you keep track of that impact through both qualitative (evaluation) and quantitative (outcome measures) feedback.


By Pamela Ames Coke July 31, 2025
One of the most controversial “asks” in the nonprofit sector, alongside general operating expenses, is the request for capacity building funds. It can be challenging to find a funder who will financially support capacity building. Unlike a programming request, an organization cannot point to a specific event and report, “The company served an additional 500 people by upgrading its customer relationship management system.” It is more challenging to quantify the impact of purchasing upgraded technology—but it is not impossible. A nonprofit’s superpower is what it already has: the organization’s mission and vision. Capacity-building funding is central to American philanthropy and to a civil society. In order to thrive, nonprofit organizations need to be free to develop their skills and abilities—to get even better at what they do best. The National Council of Nonprofits defines capacity building as “whatever is needed to bring a nonprofit to the next level of operational, programmatic, financial, or organizational maturity.” It is the type of funding that allows a nonprofit to advance its mission and act on its vision. Capacity building funding is central to American philanthropy and to a civil society. In order to thrive, nonprofit organizations need to be free to develop their skills and abilities—to get even better at what they do best. This is why capacity building is vital. A nonprofit can enhance its capacity building requests in three ways: by focusing the lens on the organization’s mission; by expanding the lens to look at the organization’s vision; and by changing the lens to consider succession planning. All these elements can open funding streams that allow an organization to get even better at what it does best. Mission Impossible - Without Full Capacity When considering applying for capacity building grants, focus on the organization’s mission. This can be an effective way to frame a nonprofit’s funding request. Suppose an organization provides adult daycare services for seniors in its community. In that case, the organization’s mission might be to provide quality programming that supports the social and mental wellness of area seniors for improved health outcomes. Perhaps the team is noticing that the demand for its nonprofit’s services is exceeding the staff’s availability. The nonprofit may need to purchase a volunteer management system or recruit and train more volunteers. Collaborate with the team to articulate the request that will help take the nonprofit to the next level of programmatic maturity. To craft a persuasive capacity building request focused on the company’s mission, consider the following: Mission - What is the organization’s mission statement? Need - What does nonprofit need that it currently does not have in order to fulfill its mission? Data that supports this need - How does the team know the business needs this? Request - What is the nonprofit requesting? How much is the cost of each budget item? Include a budget breakdown for the funder. Return on investment - How will these capacity building funds help the nonprofit fulfill its mission? How does the team know? In terms of data, consider what would have the most impact on the potential funder. For example, if the organization is applying to a financial organization, the applicant might refer to the bottom line—the cost of doing business. In April 2024, the Independent Sector, in cooperation with the Do Good Institute at the University of Maryland, reported that the estimated value of one volunteer hour in 2023 was $33.49, a 5.3% increase over 2022 (independentsector.org). How does that $33.49 contribute to the organization’s ability to fulfill its mission? Capacity building starts and ends with a nonprofit’s mission. The mission is what the organization does best. Make it clear why funding this capacity building request will help the organization do its best for the target population. Show, don’t tell, a potential funder how it is impossible for the business to fulfill its mission without being at full capacity in a given area of the organization, such as volunteer management. Vision Screening - Seeing up close and far away Mission is seeing up close. It is what the nonprofit team does on a day-to-day basis. Vision is far-sighted; it is stepping back and looking at what the organization wants to accomplish over a period of years. Suppose a company is a nonprofit that provides after-school mentoring for at-risk youth. The organization is receiving feedback that the needs of the students the team serves—and the needs of the mentors who serve them—are changing. Students need access to technology, and mentors need training on new tools and resources to best meet those demands. The company has been getting by with what is available, but it is time to step back and look at the bigger picture, to evaluate what could be possible for the organization and the people the team serves. It is time to review—or create—the organization’s strategic plan to identify and order the company’s needs. The strategic plan is a nonprofit’s roadmap to success. It helps a company prioritize its needs by outlining its goals and identifying how the team plans to meet that vision. A strategic plan outlines an organization’s identified needs over time. But how does a nonprofit balance the needs outlined in a strategic plan alongside the needs that arise from day-to-day interactions with the people the organization serves? When using a strategic plan to identify a vision-aligned capacity building funding request, consider the following: Vision - What is the nonprofit’s vision statement? Need - What are the organization’s immediate needs? How do these needs align with the nonprofit’s identified needs over the next 2-5 years? Data that supports this need - How does the team know these are the organization’s short-term and long-term needs? What are the data points? What is the nonprofit currently [not] able to do? Where are the gaps? How does the team know? Request - What does the nonprofit need to guide the organizational development? Can the organization do this work internally, or does the leadership team need to hire a consultant? Return on Investment - How will these capacity building funds help the nonprofit fulfill its vision? How does the team know? In terms of data points, how does the organization evaluate current services? Does the team use qualitative tools (narrative feedback), quantitative tools (surveys with closed-ended questions), or mixed methods (a combination of the two)? In terms of the request, what does the company want and need this request to include? If the organization has a lot of competing needs, it can be helpful to hire a consultant to guide the team through the prioritizing process. Include that cost in the capacity building request. Capacity building allows an organization to grow and meet the next level of operational maturity. Having—and using--a strategic plan is essential to a thriving and responsive nonprofit. Succession Planning - What you don't know can hurt you According to BoardSource’s latest Leading with Intent Report (2021), only 29% of nonprofits surveyed reported having a written succession plan in place (councilofnonprofits.org). While succession planning involves deliberate consideration of who will take over in the event of a retirement or other transition at the leadership level, succession planning is not an event (naming a successor); it is a process. If a nonprofit does not already have a succession plan in place or needs to update its plan, consider requesting capacity building funds to financially support this process. The National Council of Nonprofits (councilofnonprofits.org) identifies ten planning tips for leadership transition, from engaging the board and the staff in meaningful conversation about managing intentional transitions in leadership to dedicating time and money to deliberate on-boarding. This planning incurs costs, and securing capacity building funds can make this process easier. Leadership - What are the organization’s current leadership roles? Need - Why does the nonprofit want to develop a succession plan? What would be the impact on the organization and its programming if the nonprofit does not have a succession plan? How would such chaos impact the company’s mission and vision? Data that supports this need - What is the organizational structure? How does the team decide who serves in each capacity? How many Board members does the organization have? Staff members? Volunteers? How many people does the nonprofit serve? How many team members serve in multiple roles? Request - How would the organization use capacity building funds? Break down the component costs, from creating an Emergency Leadership Transition Plan to developing new leaders to onboarding leaders. Return on Investment - How will these capacity building funds allow the nonprofit to fulfill its mission and vision? How will it save the company time and money in the long run? Capacity building funds are necessary for securing the long-term health and survival of an organization. Data tells us that 71% of nonprofits are ill-prepared for a change in leadership, whether that change is planned or unexpected. Investing in purposeful succession planning using capacity building funds can help safeguard an organization, allowing the team to take the nonprofit to the next level of financial and organizational maturity. Be intentional The key to requesting capacity building funds is to be intentional. Know who the nonprofit is, who the nonprofit serves, and how the nonprofit serves (mission). Know where the organization is today and where it wants to be in 5-10 years (vision). Know who the leaders are today—and in five years (succession planning). All of these are part of capacity building. A contender is hard-pressed to complete a grant application or draft an LOI without addressing sustainability—how a team plans to stay afloat as an organization. Capacity building makes sustainability possible. By staying focused on the nonprofit’s mission and vision, an organization can craft a capacity building request that allows the team to get even better at what it does best. Now that’s a superpower!
Story Telling
By By: Valarie Bostic June 13, 2024
Every child has a hero, someone who inspired vision in them, someone they aspired to be like. For me, as a little girl, I had two heroes- Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Seuss. Although from different times and disciplines, they both taught me invaluable lessons I still use today. Despite their different fields of expertise - Franklin in politics, science, and invention, and Dr. Seuss in children's literature - they both left a lasting legacy that continues to shape and inspire generations. Both were unique influential philosophers who found purpose and fulfillment through connections to others. From the wisdom of “Poor Richards Almanac” to the lyrical ingenuity of “Oh The Places You Will Go,” both Franklin and Seuss were storytellers with a voice for change. Their words made me think and encouraged me to dream. At eight years old, I knew I also wanted to write and tell stories that would encourage people and change the world. It's fascinating how childhood aspirations can pave the way for unexpected yet fulfilling careers. Little did I know that this passion would one day lead me to a successful career in grant writing. Inspired by the works of two literary giants, I found myself drawn to a path of advocacy and change. So, after a successful 25-year career in non-profit Executive leadership, I was given the opportunity to join the Pathways to Growth Team as a grant writer. Pathways has been a leader in the non-profit consulting arena for many years so to be able to work with the best of the best has been a privilege! To me, grant writing is a harmonious blend of science and art, where data-driven methodology meets creative expression to produce persuasive and impactful proposals. Sounds impressive, right? So, what did I learn about grant writing from these two? For that, I will start with good ole Ben.
Momentum and Impact
By Marcia Wynn, PhD April 29, 2024
Securing a grant represents a monumental achievement for any entity or individual striving to confront societal challenges or propel constructive transformations forward. It signifies a crucial step toward making a tangible impact and fostering positive change within communities. While obtaining a grant marks a substantial milestone, the true impact transcends mere acquisition; it hinges on the adept execution of the proposed program or project. Effectively implementing the envisioned initiatives is where the transformative potential of the grant truly manifests. Maximizing the impact of a grant necessitates a meticulous approach, characterized by thorough planning, strategic execution, and continuous evaluation. This comprehensive process ensures that resources are allocated judiciously and utilized optimally, ultimately leading to the attainment of desired outcomes. Below are eight fundamental strategies essential for the effective implementation of programs, designed to unlock the full potential and maximize the impact of grants. These strategies serve as guiding principles, shaping the trajectory of grant-funded initiatives toward meaningful and sustainable outcomes.
Board Giving and Grant Success – A Vital Link
By Jule Colvin July 14, 2021
It is a very competitive grant world out there, so be sure you understand the vital link between board giving and grant success.
Everything Rises and Falls on Leadership
By Jule Colvin May 5, 2021
As the leader of your nonprofit, your leadership abilities are crucial for the welfare of your staff, volunteers, and the community you serve.
Tell Your Nonprofit’s Story by Wagging Your Own Tail
By Carla Wright March 2, 2021
To quote my Aunt Babe (age 93), “It’s a poor dog that won’t wag its own tail.” This gives you permission to share positive observations about yourself.
Efficient Productivity for Grant Seeking – Part II
By Kari Cronbaugh-Auld MSW, GPC February 17, 2021
his article is a continuation of a blog we posted two weeks ago on efficient productivity in grant seeking. Here is a recap of the first five steps: 1) Manage your Energy, Not Your Time, 2) Be Your Own Coach or Find A Trusted Coach, 3) Read About Productivity, 4) Set Goals. Let’s continue with #5…
Efficient Productivity for Grant Seeking – Part 1
By Kari Cronbaugh-Auld MSW, GPC January 29, 2021
Some of us are wired to organize and seek out efficient productivity. Some of us are not, but no judgment here! The good news is that regardless of how easy it is for you to stay organized and have efficient productivity on a daily basis, there are some tried and true steps that will help you stay on track and meet your grant goals.
Lessons in Grant Seeking from a Tricolored Heron
By Jule Colvin January 11, 2021
I did not expect to receive lessons in grant seeking while on holiday break this year with my husband.
Grant Budgets & Cookie Recipes!
By Kari Cronbaugh-Auld MSW, GPC December 30, 2020
Writing the narrative takes the bulk of the time you spend preparing a grant proposal, just like mixing the cookie ingredients. However, grant budgets are just as important; they are like recipes when you are baking.