The Nonprofit Roundtable is interested in helping answer the question, "What difference do nonprofits make?"  With Members' input, the Roundtable is working to better make the case for the nonprofit community's value and impact.

The nonprofit community knows that the return on investment from nonprofits can be extraordinary -- after measuring the public impact on the quality of life that nonprofits can provide, the costs of not investing in nonprofits are just too great to ignore.  But, those who are in the nonprofit community also recognize the need to better measure and communicate these accomplishments and the value that has been created. 

In a 2006 letter to Members, the Roundtable described a focus on communicating the value of the sector.  Afterward, we began collecting examples from nonprofit organizations and are looking forward to receiving more from you.   Here are some samples to consider:

• Making the case for job training: Graduates from Northern Virginia Family Service's Training Futures increase their annual earnings by 93% and increase their rate of home ownership by 82%.  See NVFS' Trickle Up study for more details.  And, Twin Cities Arise!, a Minnesota nonprofit, quotes state research (note this Federal Reserve article "Changing the Way Lawmakers Make Spending Decisions") that the social value of their job training program is $3.5 million compared to the $2 million cost of the program.
  

• Making the case for teen pregnancy prevention:  In policy circles there is too often a lot of talk about costs without enough understanding of benefits.  For example, The Alexandria Gazette Packet recently described a public hearing on the budget to " put a cost on every action taken by City Hall.  One example would be a program designed to prevent teen pregnancy."  What's missing from this policy debate are facts and advocacy about the costs of NOT doing the teen pregnancy prevention program.  Here's the answer: teen childbearing in Virginia costs $177 thatmillion a year according to The National Campaign to End Teen Pregnancy.
  

• Making the case for quality child care: DC Fiscal Policy Institute's Ed Lazere makes the case for investment in children (rather than hiring more police officers) in the Hill Rag noting, "Research shows that early childhood education programs can have profound long-term effects - and ultimately reduce crime" and quotes Fight Crime: Invest in Kids"at-risk children left out of quality pre-kindergarten are five times more likely to grow up to become criminals by age 27 than children in pre-kindergarten."  On the same topic, Pre-K for All DC says that "if a high-quality pre-k-for-all system were in place in DC, the city's incarceration rates would fall dramatically, saving the District residents approximately $17.62 million."

Roundtable Members participated in two ways in the short-term:

1. Members sent data and examples of any of the following:
   • Impact information about your organization including 'returns on investment' - anecdotes, data from annual reports, etc.
   • General studies or articles about the impact that nonprofits make (e.g., reports that make the case about community benefit for investing in affordable housing, arts programs, job training, youth development)
2. Members convened in a series of discussions about the impact that nonprofits make including:
   • On December 19, Members met with Gita Gulati-Partee, the author of a Charlotte Observer op-ed entitled "Cutting Nonprofits Will Cost Government More." We are modeling our initiative in part on this successful effort in North Carolina.
   • On February 7, Members met with The Independent Sector's Patricia Nash-Christel, Vice President for Communications and Marketing on a new national initiative called 'Communicating the Value of Our Sector.'
   • On August 7, the Roundtable hosted a conversation with about 40 Members on Efforts To Outcomes. This included an ETO representative as well as several Roundtable Members who use this software including East Capitorl Center for Change, Health Families/Thriving Communities Collaborative, Latin American Youth Center, and Living Classrooms of the National Capital Region.
   • On November 2, 2007, the Roundtable convened a Communcations Clinic with several communications firms to engage techniques on how to best communicate the value of the nonprofit community.

This initiative is part of a partnership with the World Bank's Community Outreach Office and we appreciate their investment.  They will make a significant investment in a select group of youth organizations in Wards 6, 7 & 8 to help them better measure and communicate their results.  Our shared goal is to enable nonprofit organizations to better identify, measure, and communicate the value they provide and the impact they make in our communities. 

Towards this end we have recently released Beyond Charity, document that, through nearly 100 examples, reveals some of the many ways in which nonprofits raise the quality of life for all of us in Greater Washington, and are the lifelines to our most vulnerable neighbors.