Nonprofit Program Evaluation: A Small-Team Guide With a Free Template
What Is Nonprofit Program Evaluation?
Nonprofit program evaluation is a planned, regular check of whether the change a program promises is happening. Outputs count activity, such as 120 students tutored. Outcomes measure change, such as the share who gained a reading level. Start with two or three outcome questions your board and funders care about, and answer them with records you already keep.
A fictional after-school tutoring program, the example used throughout this page, reports that 120 students attended 2,400 hours of tutoring. The board chair asks a different question: how many of those students read better in June than in September? The first number is an output. Her question asks for an outcome.
You can often answer her without hiring an evaluator. The method below starts from records most programs already keep, includes a free evaluation plan template, and ends in a yearly decision about each program’s future. It is one piece of a wider guide to strategy for nonprofits.
Key Takeaways
- Outputs count activity, such as tutoring hours. Outcomes measure change, such as students gaining a reading level.
- Scale the six-step evaluation framework to a small team: two or three questions, records you already keep, one cycle a year.
- An evaluation plan needs one row per question, with the indicator, data source, collector, timing and target.
- Bring results to one annual review before the budget, and settle each program’s next year there.
What Kinds of Program Evaluation Are There?
Three kinds come up most, and small nonprofits mostly need the first two. A process evaluation checks whether the program runs as designed: who comes and what they receive. An outcome evaluation checks what changed for participants. An impact evaluation tests whether the program caused that change, which usually takes a comparison group.
Candid defines program evaluation as “the process of collecting information about a program in order to make decisions about it.” If no decision will change because of what you learn, you are writing a report, and a small team cannot afford reports nobody uses.
How Do Outputs Differ From Outcomes?
Outputs count what your program does, such as sessions held or people served. Outcomes describe what changes for the people you serve: a skill gained, a job kept, a child reading at grade level. Funders often ask for both. Outcomes show whether the change you promised happened, which a board needs to know before it judges a program’s value.
| Level | What it measures | Example in the fictional tutoring program |
|---|---|---|
| Output | Activity delivered | 120 students enrolled, 2,400 hours of tutoring |
| Short-term outcome | A change in skill | Share of students who gain at least one reading level by June |
| Intermediate outcome | A change in behavior | Share of families who report reading at home three or more times a week |
| Long-term outcome | A change in condition | Share of students reading at grade level by the end of third grade |
The numbers are illustrative. Each row takes longer to show up and more data to measure. A small program can track the first two rows with its own records, the third with a short survey and the fourth only with the school’s help.
You do not have to invent outcomes. The Urban Institute’s Outcome Indicators Project lists candidate outcomes and indicators for 14 program areas, from youth tutoring to emergency shelter, with suggested data sources for each. Borrow the rows that fit.
How Does Evaluation Connect to a Logic Model?
A logic model draws the chain from your resources and activities to outputs and then outcomes. Evaluation tests each link in that chain: did the activities happen as planned, and did the expected changes follow? If you already have a logic model or a theory of change, most of your evaluation questions are already written in it.
If you have neither, sketch the chain on one page first: who the program serves, what it does and what should change, early and later. Each arrow is a question you can test.
Skip the sketch and you will measure whatever is easiest to count, which is nearly always an output.
How Do You Evaluate a Nonprofit Program?
Follow the six steps of the evaluation framework from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), scaled to a small team: assess the context, describe the program, focus on a few questions, gather credible evidence, draw conclusions you can defend and act on the findings. Run one cycle a year, finished before the budget is drafted.
The CDC Program Evaluation Framework calls itself “a practical, nonprescriptive tool” for programs “within and outside public health.” Without an evaluator, each step is one task:
- Assess the context. Name who will use the results, and for which decision, such as a grant renewal or the board’s budget vote.
- Describe the program. One paragraph, or your logic model.
- Focus the evaluation questions. Pick two or three, each worded so a number or a yes or no can answer it.
- Gather credible evidence. Attendance and service records, a measure at the start and the end, a short survey and a few participant interviews. School or employer data usually needs a data-sharing agreement, so ask the partner early.
- Generate and support conclusions. Compare results with your target and with last year, and write down what else could explain them.
- Act on findings. Decide what changes, then tell staff, participants and funders what you learned.
Timing matters more than method. Candid notes that nonprofits often design evaluation after a program is running, which makes success hard to measure. Take your starting measure in the first weeks of each program year.
What Does a Program Evaluation Template Include?
A nonprofit program evaluation template needs six columns: the evaluation question, the indicator that answers it, the data source, who collects the data, when and the target. One row per question is enough. The filled-in version below uses the fictional tutoring program. Copy the table and replace each cell with your own.
| Evaluation question | Indicator | Data source | Who collects | When | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Do students read better by June? | Share of students who gain at least one reading level | The reading assessment the program already uses | Program coordinator | September and June | 60% |
| Do students attend as planned? (a process question) | Share attending at least two sessions a week | Sign-in sheets | Tutors | Monthly | 75% |
| Do families see a change at home? | Share of parents who report reading at home three or more times a week | Three-question parent survey (record how many respond) | Program coordinator | June | 50% of respondents, with the response rate reported |
The targets are placeholders. Set yours from last year’s numbers. Candid, quoting consultant Lee Mizell, lists the minimum for an evaluation plan: the people served, measurable objectives, indicators of success, data collection and analysis, and a timeline. The table covers most of that. Add one line above it naming who the program serves, and one below saying how you will compare results.
The same rows supply the measures of impact in a program business plan, if a funder asks for one. Read when a nonprofit needs a business plan before you write it.
How Do You Measure Impact on a Small Budget?
Measure impact on a small budget with records you already keep, a short survey at the start and end of the program, and data your partners already collect, such as school reading scores. Pay for an outside evaluator when a funder requires independent findings or a large decision depends on proving the program caused the change.
Thin evaluation budgets are common. In Innovation Network’s State of Evaluation 2016, a survey of 1,125 U.S. 501(c)(3) organizations, 92% had evaluated some part of their work in the past year, yet only 12% spent 5% or more of their budgets on it. The authors recommend 5% to 10%. Limited staff time topped the barriers, named by 79%.
Build the measures into forms you already use, such as intake forms and sign-in sheets, and review one spreadsheet at an existing staff meeting. The guide on building a culture that uses program data covers those habits. If a funder will pay for evaluation, a plain guide to nonprofit finances helps you budget the line.
Be plain about what a simple evaluation shows. If reading levels rise, the program may have helped, but a before-and-after measure cannot rule out other causes, such as a new school curriculum. Say so in the report.
Hire an evaluator for technical needs, such as a study with a comparison group. CNPC tells applicants this during matching, because its coaches do not try to coach their way through a consulting problem.
How Should Results Change the Strategic Plan?
Bring the results to one annual review where the executive director and the board decide, program by program, what to grow, what to fix and what to stop. Tie each strategic goal to one outcome measure, so the evaluation answers the plan’s own questions and its report feeds a decision someone has already scheduled.
If your plan lacks outcome measures, start from a strategic plan template with an outcome measure for every goal. Hold the review before the budget is drafted, while it can still move money. For the habits between reviews, see keeping a plan moving after approval.
In the same 2016 survey, support from organization leadership was the help most often cited for evaluation, named by 77%. The difficult case is evidence that a well-loved program is not working.
Deciding whether to fix it or end it is a leadership call more than a data problem.
CNPC holds its own coaching to the same modest standard. For every engagement, it tracks client-reported progress on goals, whether the six sessions are completed and how the leader is doing at follow-up. It has no published outcome study, and a modest measure kept every year still beats none.
Where Should You Start This Week?
Start with one question and one record. Write the outcome question your board would ask about your largest program, then find the one record you already keep that could answer it, even partly. That pair is the first row of your evaluation plan, and the rest of the template builds from it.
The data work belongs to you or an evaluator. A coach helps with the decisions after it: what the results mean for a program you built, and how to bring a hard finding to the board. CNPC offers six sessions of nonprofit executive coaching for $300 to $600, depending on your organization’s operating expenses, because volunteer coaches donate their time. When you are ready, Apply Now.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should a nonprofit evaluate its programs?
Track a few output numbers every month and review outcomes once a year, before budget and planning decisions. Plan a deeper evaluation when a major grant requires one, the program changes substantially or the board is deciding whether to expand or close it.
Do funders require outcome measurement?
Many do. Candid notes that “more and more foundations expect to see an evaluation component in the programs they fund.” Grant applications often ask how you will collect, analyze and report results. Read each funder’s reporting requirements before the grant starts, and build those questions into your evaluation plan from the first week.
What is the difference between impact measurement and program evaluation?
The terms overlap. On this page, impact measurement means tracking results across the whole organization over time. Program evaluation is a planned look at one program to inform a decision about it. A strict impact evaluation tests whether the program caused the change.
Can staff evaluate their own program?
Yes, with safeguards. Use the same measure at the start and the end, report disappointing results next to good ones, and ask someone outside the program, such as a board member or a volunteer with research experience, to review the findings before they go to funders.
The Evidence Is Only Half the Work
Deciding what results mean for a program is a leadership call. A coach helps you think it through over six sessions, $300 to $600 by operating expenses, because our coaches donate their time.
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