Performance Measures
NRFC has set out to build an evaluation model that focuses on the relationship between building capacity and measuring performance. In actuality, these are two sides of the same coin that the funder invests and the practitioner spends.
Two Sides of a Common Question and the Implications for Collaboration
From the practitioners’ viewpoint, outcome achievement and measurement are tied to capacity. From the funders perspective, capacity building must be grounded in achievable, sustainable and measurable outcomes. In a word, the new model evolving is one of “strategic readiness.”
|
Practitioners: |
“What do we need to do to bring about change? What capacity must be built or developed within rural areas or regions to enable them effectively to achieve desired outcomes and take advantage of current and future strategic opportunities?” What capitals do rural communities possess and what capacity must be developed to achieve envisioned outcomes?
|
|
Funders: |
“What is the change that rural communities seek to bring about? What are those achievable outcomes and strategic opportunities critical to economic revitalization, leadership development and improvement in quality of life for which rural communities, leaders and families must be ready and capable of realizing?” What performance measures and indicators are appropriate to rural community change?
|
|
Implicit: |
How and when is collaboration an effective investment strategy? How do we invest and who do we invest in to leverage community capital, increase capacity and achieve measurable outcomes? |
This model is built from NRFC’s threefold learning framework for understanding rural community change evolving from interactions and conversations with its grantees, funders and policy allies.
This strategic readiness model, then, is focused on understanding the types of community capital that contribute to community change and how those “capitals” are transformed into capacity for achieving desired outcomes and taking advantage of strategic opportunities.
View the Asset/Capital Maps and Theory of Change of Strategic Investments
Read More:
Next
|