Fuel Your Program Funding
with Data-Driven
Evaluation Reporting
impactaligned.com
SARAH MERION

G O A L F O R T O D A Y
www.impactaligned.com
Learn how to gain more funding
by utilizing & visualizing your
program data.

W H A T Y O U ' L L N E E D F O R T O D A Y :
www.impactaligned.com
An open mind and a sense of curiosity 🤔
Not required but helpful: a thirst to
transform into a data-informed
organization 💦

Y O U ' R E I N T H E R I G H T P L A C E I F
Y O U R O R G A N I Z A T I O N I S . . .
Prioritizing becoming a data-informed
organization because you know that
measuring your impact is the only way to
grow your impact
Your data is scattered across systems
and you don't currently have a way to
figure out how to centrally analyze and
visualize it
Increasingly finding that funders and
grant applications require or prefer
organizations to provide data or
evidence of impact
You’re unsure how to connect the data
you have to the strategy and strategic
goals you’re pursuing.
Craving being data-informed to lead
with confidence and clarity
www.impactaligned.com
You want to report on your program's
successes and provide the proper
evaluation to internal and external
stakeholders

HI! I'M SARAH MERION
💁🏽‍♀️ Strategist, impact advisor, and data translator to non-profit
executives needing to unlock the value of the data within their
organizations
📈 13+ years of helping executives leverage the power of their data
and visualize it so they can make confident decisions. Former IT
Strategy Consultant @ Accenture
🤝 Strategy Consulting + Data Architecture/Modeling + Business
Analyst + Visualization
🧡 My personal mission: help increase the impact of non-profits,
foundations, and philanthropies by leveraging their data and
technology
👨‍👩‍👧‍👧 Boston-based and in the "2 under 2 club"!
www.impactaligned.com

W H Y D O W E C A R E A B O U T D A T A -
D R I V E N E V A L U A T I O N R E P O R T I N G ?
www.impactaligned.com
Analyze your organization's program's
impact using the precise angle
Understand and optimize your efforts to
improve them over time
Determine your the right impact story for
the right donor
Confirm strategic decisions or gain
clarity in changing course
Tailor funder needs and interests to the
vast ways you are able to analyze and
present your program's outcomes
Inform program impact projections to
wider populations based on evidence of
current impact

Define your
impact
1
Audit your
data
2
Define
leading
indicators
3
Align your
strategy
4
Visualize
the
outcomes
5
Tell your
impact
story
6
THE ROADMAP
Data-Driven Program Evaluation
www.impactaligned.com

DEFINE YOUR IMPACT
Step 1
Start backward with strategy to get to the
nitty gritty detailed calculations
Reverse-engineer what you need to know and
what your funders are asking
If you can't answer this question, neither can
anyone else!
Program Objectives
#1
#2
Intended Impact
How You Measure
#3
www.impactaligned.com

AUDIT YOUR DATA
Step 2
Excel or Google Sheets
CRM
Finance system
Email marketing system
Social media
Google Analytics
Other sneaky places or platforms?!
Demographic
Pre and post surveys
Completeness of data
Information as it relates to your program objectives
Where is your data living?
What types of data are you collecting? 10 minute tip:
Set a timer and jot down all the places where your data is stored.
Have your team do this and then consolidate your responses.
www.impactaligned.com

DEFINE LEADING/LAGGING
INDICATORS
Step 3
Metrics can measure past performance or
predict future performance
Lagging indicators = measures past
performance
Leading indicators = future-looking predictive
measurements and show that you're making
progress toward goals
Focus on the leading indicators that move the
needle in your programs and how those can be
extrapolated to forecast future impact.
www.impactaligned.com

ALIGN YOUR STRATEGY TO DATA
Step 4
Do you have all the data you need to
demonstrate that impact?
If yes, start there by calculating your evaluation
reports and your impact
If no, start a wishlist of data you need to collect
to in order to reserve engineer the impact you
want to show from your programs
Use a "phased" approach to measuring your
program's impact, but make sure to start with
what you can measure now and demonstrate!
S T R A T E G Y D A T A
A L I G N M E N T
www.impactaligned.com

VISUALIZE THE OUTCOMES
Step 5
Paint the picture (literally) once you've
performed your analysis
Put things in context! Contextualizing
your program's outcomes is key to
communicating to funders
Make sure you are speaking back to your
original impact and note where the
leading indicators are and how you
control and influence the growth of
those indicators
www.impactaligned.com

TELL YOUR IMPACT STORY
Step 6
Once you've consolidated, analyzed, and
visualized your impact, you can communicate
your program's success with evidence-based
information to donors
Make a stronger case for future funding based on
past program success and demonstrated impact
Forecast any evidence-based evaluation of your
programs to make a use case for further funding
and increased impact
www.impactaligned.com

D A T A B E S T P R A C T I C E S
Required fields
Make sure you require
everything to be filled in
that truly you need. Where
possible be consistent
from program to program,
year to year so you can
cross evaluate your data
Clean up old stuff
Cleaning up that data you
already have *now* is the
best use of your time
before you embark on
optimizing and adding
new data.
Standardize formatting
Using a State field? Use a
dropdown field, not a
write-in.
MA or Massachusetts is
better than MA, Ma, Mass,
Massachusetts,
Massachusets
www.impactaligned.com

GROW YOUR IMPACT!
Connect with me on LinkedIn:
www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmerion
Measure and visualize your impact!
Download the guide ⤵
www.impactaligned.com/bloomerang
www.impactaligned.com

QUESTIONS?
LAY 'EM ON ME!
?
www.impactaligned.com

- A R T H U R A S H E
START WHERE YOU ARE.
USE WHAT YOU HAVE.
DO WHAT YOU CAN.
www.impactaligned.com

THANK YOU!
Connect with me on LinkedIn:
www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmerion
Measure and visualize your impact!
Download the guide ⤵
www.impactaligned.com/bloomerang
www.impactaligned.com