Evaluation Will Play a Critical Role in Work of White House Office

Measurements and evaluation will play an important role as government and the nonprofit world work together to identify and expand the best solutions to the country’s most pressing social problems, Sonal Shah, director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, told conference participants.

“We want to scale what works,” she said. “We want to be able to define our outcomes and be accountable for the results.”

But good data on programs’ social impact are more than just a way to compare various approaches; it also allows organizations to learn and continue to refine their programs, Ms. Shah said.

Organizations also need to be able to talk openly about their failures and the challenges they face, she said. Not being able to discuss problems leads to “perverse incentives” such as evaluating programs to show whether money was used effectively rather than whether the activities it was spent on achieved their desired results.

“Just like business, which sometimes makes wrong decisions and needs to course correct, nonprofits and social businesses should be able to course correct and make changes,” said Ms. Shah. “They should only be considered failures if they fail to correct the problem.”