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A Quality Framework: A tool for trusts to assess themselves, suitable for trusts of all sizes
Association of Charitable Foundations. London: Association of Charitable Foundations, 2002
Available only to ACF members, this guide provides trusts with a self-assessment tool to help them think through their work and to facilitate their development, and improve the quality of their grant-making.
Measuring Real Value: A DIY Guide to Social Return on Investment
London: New Economics Foundation, July 2007
Social Return on Investment’ analysis captures the positive social and environmental impacts that are otherwise left off the balance sheet. Social enterprises, third sector organisations and ethical businesses deliver a far wider range of benefits than it is possible to capture using narrow conventional assessments of returns on investment. This guide provides instructions on how to prove and quantify the wider social value created by companies and organisations with a social purpose.
Freely available online at New Economics Foundation
Measuring Real Value: A DIY Guide to Social Return on Investment
Jeremy Nicholls, Susan Mackenzie and Ailbeth Somers. London: New Economics Foundation, 2007
'Social Return on Investment’ analysis captures the value of wider benefits of positive social and environmental impacts that are otherwise left off the balance sheet. This free guide provides easy, step-by-step instructions for organisations that want to prove and quantify the social returns that they deliver.
• PDF freely available online from New Economics Foundation
Monitoring and Evaluation - A practical guide for grant-making trusts
Des Palmer. London: Association of Charitable Foundations, 1998
Written specifically from the perspective of the funder and by a former grant-maker, focusing on the important aspect of measuring success.
• Order the report from ACF
Proving and Improving Toolkit
L Sanfilippo et al. London: New Economics Foundation, 2005
To help mission-driven organisations to explore practical ways to measure their social, economic and environmental impact; and demonstrate the quality of what they do and how they operate.
• PDF freely available online from New Economics Foundation
Unequal Partnerships: Beyond the Rhetoric of Philanthropic Collaboration
Ira Silver, New York: Routledge, 2006
The divisions and differences between grantors and grantees form the central backbone of this book. A lengthy description of the Chicago Initiative is used to illustrate difficulties in the donor-recipient relationship and to assess how the differences within and between these groups affect their possibilities for collaboration and their ultimate impact.
• Read the review in the December 2006 Newsletter
Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits
Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant
New York: Jossey-Bass, October 2007. 336pp.Hardback. ISBN 978-0-7879-8612-4 www.josseybass.com
An innovative guide to how great non-profits achieve extraordinary social impact, based on case studies of twelve high-performing charities. The authors’ central question - what makes great non-profits great? – is answered by describing six counterintuitive practices that these organisations have used to achieve extraordinary levels of impact. For example, great non-profits spend as much time working outside their four walls as they do managing their internal operations, and they use the power of leverage to become greater forces for good. This book has lessons for all readers interested in creating significant social change, including non-profit managers, donors and volunteers.
