How Do You Measure the Impact of An Economic Development Corporation?
Like most nonprofit organizations, it can be challenging to think about how you are going to measure the impact of the organization. However, it is possible.
Directors of Economic Development Corporations in partnership with their board should prepare an annual plan of work that specifies intended outcomes and how they intend to measure their progress on Outcomes. Once the staff and board have agreed upon measurable outcomes, it is important to visit the annual plan of work and those outcomes on a regular basis during board meetings. At the end of the year, it would be logical to focus on the work plan and those measures during the annual performance review.
Outcome Measurement does not prove a cause-effect relationship. And...when it comes to economic development the actions of one individual or one organization is not likely to be entirely responsible for results within a community. The board and staff should be comfortable with the idea that success is shared, but agree upon how they are going to measure that success.
There are wealth of resources on the topic of Outcome Measurement which can be found on this web site at:
http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/nonprofits/management/sites_outcome.cfm
http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/nonprofits/management/suppread.cfm#Outcome
The resources above are inteneded for Nonprofits in general. The following are resources related specifically to performance measurement and economic development:
Benchmarking Economic Development in Worcester: 2008
Community Economics Newsletter: "Performance Measures for Community Economic Development, Feb. '05
Community Indicators Consortium (CIC) Awards - The CIC Innovation Awards are sponsored by the Urban Markets Initiative at the Brookings Institution. They recognize community indicators projects that have proven to be particularly effective in stimulating community change. Take a look at past award winners for ideas.
Getting At Impact, Paul Clements, National Housing Institute, Sept/Oct 2001.
Key National Indicators Initiative , The Key National Indicators Initiative (KNII), launched in 2003 and currently housed at The National Academies in Washington, D.C., has begun work on a comprehensive indicator set that will allow individual citizens, organizations, and elected officials to answer the question, “How are we doing as a nation?”.
The Logic Model Applied to Economic Development, An article By: John Warren, AngelouEconomics, May, 2005
Performance Measurement In State Economic Development Agencies: Lessons And Next Steps For GDITT, Laura Czohara, Dr. Julia Melkers, Georgia State University. The purpose of this project was to develop the basis for a comprehensive performance monitoring system for the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism (GDITT).
Success Measures, Transforming Outcome Measurement , NeighborWorks America.
Strategic Plans: Samples from Economic Development Corporations Around the State of Wisconsin , Can you have success if you haven't determined what you are going to focus on, or how you are going to measure your progress?
Thrive, State of the Madison Region Report
Waterfront Development Corporation Limited Business Plan 2008-2009 , See page 15 for outcomes.
