The SMART Fund
Outcome Measurement Guide - Splash &
Ripple
Using Outcomes to
Design & Manage
Community Activities
This Guide was prepared for the SMART Fund to
assist funded groups to use outcomes in
designing and managing programs. It draws from a
wide range of sources, making it relevant to many
other community programs in the non-profit
sector as a whole.
Outcome Measurement is easier to understand
and use when you have a mental image of how it
works. We use an image of rock dropped in water
to show what we do and what difference we make
in our projects. Read this guide once through to
help you build that image. You will see that
Outcome Measurement is a process of piecing
ideas together like you would a puzzle - an Activity
here, a Long Term Outcome there, until the puzzle
pieces fit together in a logical way. These key
terms are laid out in this guide in a logic chain, to
help you understand this process.
Once you have read this guide through, go to page
4 for suggestions on getting started on using
Outcome Measurement in your organization. An
example of a completed framework and indicators
can be found in the Appendix. By using the guide in
this way, you will begin to internalize how Outcome
Measurement works and it will become easier
each time you use it. More importantly, it helps you
visualize meaningful and achievable changes in
your community. What is different about Outcome
Measurement from previous planning approaches
is that it challenges us to reach beyond traditional
goals and objectives to describe how our
community will be different.
“The real voyage of discovery consists
not in seeking new landscapes but in
having new eyes.” - Marcel Proust
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