A universal spreadsheet started from scratch. An old-school paper form outperforming the software it replaced. Board meetings that now open with a success story. These are things agencies in the Impact Measurement cohort have already taken action on, reported at our third session under the Agency Capacity Builder, a program convening agencies funded by Milton Township's Mental Health Board (https://miltontownship.net/services/708_mental_health_board/index.php).
We went around the room first, and what came back was not plans. Honest feedback gathered quarterly, from staff as well as clients. Staff trained to write a good success story, not just collect one. One agency changing what it tracks to match what funders actually ask.
Two agencies brought live challenges. One is trying to follow young people across programs and years, so it can show what happened to them rather than only that they registered. The other runs eight integrated programs and is growing fast, with data scattered across systems never designed to talk to each other. Both started as software questions and neither stayed there. The first turned on relationships, on how asking an alum for their data keeps them connected. The second turned on culture, on what changes when a team sees its own numbers every week instead of never.
Thank you to Xilin Association (https://xilin.org) for hosting us at their Lisle headquarters. We had just spent a session on how hard it is to capture what matters most in a database. Then they walked us through their first floor. A calligraphy lesson underway. Ping pong and mahjong at once. People sharing a meal, a nurse's office down the hall. A hundred seniors in one building, finding connection, value, and being seen.
This cohort, in partnership with Good Works Results LLC (https://www.goodworksresults.com) is building organizational capacity across #DuPageCounty. Ten agencies, six sessions, each one taking a turn bringing a real problem to a room of peers. The expertise is already in this network. What the program adds is the structure that gets it out of one agency and into the others.
Grateful to work alongside these agencies: CASE/Glenbard Early Childhood Collaborative (https://casedupage.com), Glen Ellyn Children's Resource Center (https://gecrc.com), Glen Ellyn Youth and Family Counseling Services (https://geyfcs.org), KidsMatter (https://kidsmatter2us.org), Little Friends, Inc. (https://lilfriends.com), Midwest Shelter for Homeless Veterans, Inc. (https://mshv.org), NAMI DuPage (https://namidupage.org), Ray Graham Association (https://raygraham.org), World Relief Chicagoland (https://worldrelief.org/chicagoland), and Xilin Association (https://xilin.org).
#AgencyCapacityBuilder #ImpactMeasurement #NonprofitLeadership #CommunityImpact #GoodWorksResults #DataForGood #PeerLearning #CapacityBuilding