Transcript Episode 177 – Collecting and Communicating Impact Data in a Meaningful Way with John Mark Vanderpool on The Prosperous Nonprofit

[00:00:00] Stephanie Skryzowski: Welcome to the prosperous nonprofit, the podcast for leaders who are building financially sustainable and impactful nonprofits and changing the world. I’m Stephanie Skrzewski, a chief financial officer and founder and CEO of 100 degrees consulting. My personal mission is to empower leaders to better understand their numbers, to grow their impact and their income.

On this show, we talk to people who are leading the nonprofit sector in new. Innovative, disruptive, and entrepreneurial ways, creating organizations that fuel their lives, their hearts, and their communities. Let’s dive in.

Hey friends, welcome back to The Prosperous Nonprofit. I’m Stephanie Skrzelski, and I am joined today by John Mark Vanderpool. So we are talking about all things data today, because here’s the thing, donors [00:01:00] demand impact data and many organizations need additional resources and training to measure and market their impact.

So John Mark Vanderpool, my guest today and co founder of social impact solutions, works diligently to equip nonprofit organizations with essential fundraising and impact tools, facilitating their journey toward growing more impact. more effectively. Now, the conversation that we have today is so interesting because we all know that we need data, right?

We need to measure our social impact so that we can communicate it to our donors, to our funders. It can be really hard to know where to start and how to do it right and all the things. And so John Mark really demystifies this whole process for us. And it starts with the of change. So if you don’t know what that is, Listen up.

He is going to tell us all about what it is because this is not something I’m super familiar with either. I know all about financial data, but when it comes to programmatic data and [00:02:00] impact data, that is not my specialty. And so we talk today all about impact data, how to get it, what that process looks like, and the three steps that you should take to really set yourselves above like, Probably 90 percent of nonprofits out there when it comes to collecting and sharing your data.

So this is an awesome conversation. Super enlightening. John Mark has lots of good resources for us and I’m excited for you to listen to it. So without further ado, let’s go talk to John Mark.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the prosperous nonprofit. Today I have on the show with me John Mark Vanderpool. John Mark, welcome. 

[00:02:45] John Mark Vanderpool: Stephanie. Thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.  [00:02:47] Stephanie Skryzowski: Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit. We’re going to start with the work that you do now at Social Impact Solutions.

I’m going to get to the journey that led you there. But first, if you could please tell us a little bit about you and [00:03:00] your work at Social Impact Solutions. 

[00:03:02] John Mark Vanderpool: Absolutely. So, Social Impact Solutions, we help nonprofits measure and market their social impact. And so that is the whole goal. For what we do, and we take a very rigorous data driven approach.

My lovely wife and business partner is a doctorate in public health, master’s in nutrition. She is a wonderful data driven professional, and she helps nonprofits really get the program data out of the, uh, out of their programs, obviously. And my focus is more on the fundraising, marketing, and communication side.

She was a fabulous fundraiser, marketer, and communications expert, but we do try to bifurcate the roles and responsibilities, um, into two different departments, and so. We are all about how do you measure your social impact and then how do you communicate that social impact so you can raise more money while at the same time doing more good through your programs.

[00:03:46] Stephanie Skryzowski: Amazing. So we’re going to dive into that quite a bit deeper because I know that we have a lot of listeners thinking like, that sounds awesome. And also like, where do I even begin? This is super overwhelming, but I would [00:04:00] love to know what led you to co founding Social Impact Solutions. What did your journey look like to get you, you know, to where you are now? [00:04:07] John Mark Vanderpool: That’s a great question. Really good question. So I was very fortunate to grow up in a family that took medical missions very seriously. And so going back to this would have been pre Katrina days. So it was a disaster relief organization that my folks started, and we would go around the world just doing medical, medical missions work.

So my dad’s a surgeon. He’s a nurse. And we just spent a lot of time overseas, starting small clinics, turning them into hospitals and doing a lot of that kind of international development work. And they continued that work and have scaled that work with a fabulous organization called live beyond. And we just really, I was able to get a front row seat.

To what does it look like to create interventions, be a part of those interventions, and then eventually scale those interventions, which was great, led me to go on to undergrad, went to Texas A& M, international affairs, international relations, all of that, and eventually an MBA from Clemson University, but Lauren and [00:05:00] I are both My wife and business partner, what we really, really loved is we were able to serve together, both as volunteers.

We worked for a variety of organizations, again, doing similar types of work, but able to evolve from, we’re more involved in the programs. So we’re doing medical care, community development with this organization, had other organizations, excuse me, other roles with different organizations after that. And then obviously fell into the fundraising role.

And so there’s a lot of misunderstanding between. Operations and fundraising and all the different roles and responsibilities go on that. So we got to wear those hats often and then skip some of the stories on other things that we did from a business standpoint. Before we started social impact solutions, we did, you know, some economic development type, uh, Private equity funds that we were involved in while we were in South Carolina.

So got to really get different views onto investor mindsets, donor mindsets, and realize that it’s really a similar conversation to be had if I’m raising money, you know, for [00:06:00] a real estate property, like a multifamily property. Or if I’m raising money for a nonprofit. And so we were able to sort of marry the two sides of, think of your donors more as investors, communicate them the way that they want to be communicated to, which just to skip to the end of the story, donors are driven to make a social impact and they need you to give them the data to justify that.

There’s a huge shift. And donor mindsets that’s occurred over the last 12 years. And the number one driver for donating is actually the impact data that your organization presents or shows them. That’s the number one driver. It’s not feel good stories anymore. It’s not fluff. It’s none of that. It is literally the number one driver for giving is the impact data that your organization produces.

And so we felt we were in a very fortunate and just advantageous spot. So how could we help more organizations do that? And so she went on to get a doctorate in public health, a master’s in nutrition, I ran off and got an MBA, and we decided to start what was originally called something else, but evolved into social impact solutions [00:07:00] seven and a half years ago.

[00:07:01] Stephanie Skryzowski: Amazing. That’s so cool. I think we’ve only connected one other time, so I did not know the backstory with your family and kind of how you have grown up, um, in the impact space. Space and seen that in many different ways. And I would imagine that that has probably impacted the way that you’ve built your company and the sort of way that you integrate as, as you’re talking about operations and finance and fundraising and programs, because you’ve kind of seen that big picture from, you know, from many different angles is what it sounds like to me. [00:07:32] John Mark Vanderpool: Absolutely. No, it’s 100 percent true. And what was fun is working in just different parts of the developing world, and they don’t have access to the same kinds of technology. And so you think about, well, how do we measure the impact of a medical clinic in a very remote part of the world? It’s really hard without the right kinds of tools and tech.

And so what we got to do was build those kinds of tools and tech in house. And, um, It’s produced tremendous results for the nonprofit, but [00:08:00] even more importantly, tremendous results for the patients that were being served. And I think there’s so many great takeaways that you can walk away from when you realize there’s so much more donor alignment than what people think.

I think that’s something that’s really important is that people think, Oh, well, the donors will start to drive the direction of the nonprofit. And Mai Chang is this wonderful woman who is now the CEO of Candid. She wrote a great book called Lean Impact. And it’s one of, she has a quote in there. It’s one of my all time favorite quotes is that impact is the destination in the context of your programs.

So impact is the destination. So the good work that you do for the people or cause that you serve, but innovation is the path. And just that phrase, when you think about. All we’re really trying to do is create a social change, create a positive social change for the people or cause that we serve. And then when you also know that what I said earlier, the number one driver for donating, for giving, is the impact that you create.

It’s the more that we focus on the good that we can do for the [00:09:00] people or cause that we serve, the higher the likelihood we’re able to raise money at the same time. So it really is a fun aligning conversation when you put two and two together like that. 

[00:09:10] Stephanie Skryzowski: Yes. Yeah. I love that. And we’re going to get to how all the different sort of parts inside the nonprofit, um, interact, but I want to talk about first, like how to get data out of your programs.

I know I would venture a guess that every single person listening is like, yes, you know, we are on the ground. We are seeing. So we’re seeing the amazing work that we’re doing, but how do we, like, how do we collect data? How do we translate that into meaningful impact data that we can share that we feel really confident in?

Because I know a lot of organizations are working really hard and doing what they’re doing, but translating that hard work and that impact into data is really difficult. So where, like, what do we think about, where do we begin? 

[00:09:54] John Mark Vanderpool: It can be so hard, especially when you’re in the seat and you’re realizing like exactly what you said, whether you’re an international [00:10:00] organization or national doesn’t make a difference, it’s just.

This can be complicated. And so the most important thing is to find a reliable framework. And what I’m about to say is not original to social impact solutions. It’s called a theory of change. And so we’ve written extensively about this on our, on our blog and then webinars on theory of changes before, but it is really the first step that you want to take when you’re looking at what are we even like trying to measure here?

And it’s so, it’s such a clarifying, let’s just think about what Jim Collins did for the business world of, you know, mission, vision, values, right? Just those kinds of clarifying statements. A theory of change is very similar to that. And it really is that first step of impact measurement. And so, I’d be happy to share blogs that we’ve written on Theory of Changes, videos that we’ve done on Theory of Changes.

It really is the first step to take. And it’s the first step that we take all of our clients through in our impact and growth strategy sessions, because without it, you’re just sort of guessing. And we don’t want to guess. The last thing we want to do is [00:11:00] guess. And the thing is, nonprofits are so great at providing value, right?

They’re so good at providing value. But when we don’t have some of the necessary steps in place to measure it, it can be really hard to communicate your value in a way that a donor would easily understand. While at the same time, donors are becoming so much more sophisticated in their understanding of impact.

It really is important that we line the two up. And so starting with the theory of change. So what are the actual outcomes that we’re trying to create as a result of this program? That’s the, the ultimate goal. Like what are we hoping to accomplish long term, three, five, 10 years. And then you start reverse engineering from there.

Right. What do we then need to accomplish in a six month to two year timeline? Those are your short term outcomes. Then the next step backwards, and it really is, it’s reverse engineering. So I’m going in reverse order here. The next thing are your outputs. And I think almost everyone here knows what an output is [00:12:00] because there are a little bit of these, well, they’re definitely easier to measure than outcomes.

And so it’s the number of people served, number of meals provided, you know, number of students that graduated high school. It’s a very simple, you know, numeric metric. So 10, 000 backpacks delivered for this afterschool program or this upcoming school year. Super, super simple. But then we want to take it even further back into our activities.

What do we need to do on a daily basis for this one program to produce those outcomes, excuse me, produce those outputs that would then produce those short term outcomes and then eventually those long term outcomes. And it’s just a simple, easy view of. Actual goal of this program. Now, what we do, it’s a little bit different is then we then go into creating, where do we measure along the way?

And so we create process maps so that we can integrate technology into doing the right kinds of measurement. And I’m not talking [00:13:00] about, you don’t have to be using Salesforce for something really expensive or souped up to be able to pull this off. It’s just you need to be collecting information or data at the right times to make that work 

[00:13:13] Stephanie Skryzowski: I would imagine too that this process like the what I was thinking about as you were talking about it Like this process I would imagine would also help you really Um get clarity on what you’re doing because I feel like you know, we start out with one objective And then, you know, we divert and we go down this little path and that little path, and maybe we get, you know, a grant that helps us do this other thing.

And I would imagine that this big process where we’re really zooming out and thinking about, okay, 10 years, what’s our, what’s the, what’s that end game here, or what are our big goals will help you figure out like, okay, well, this is really working towards that path, but these other things that we’ve like added along the way that we haven’t really thought Maybe those can go, maybe we don’t need to be doing those anymore because it’s not in service of our, of our main [00:14:00] goal.

So I would imagine that like, there’s a lot of clarity in that process as well. Um, that helps like beyond just, uh, you know, being able to sort of quantify your impact. Do you see that often? 

[00:14:12] John Mark Vanderpool: I think that’s such a great point, Stephanie, a really, really solid point. Yes, to answer you quickly, to absolutely answer that quickly, because it can become very easy.

You know, there’s the whole idea of, you don’t want the tail to wag the dog kind of a situation, and you don’t want the money to drive the direction of the organization. Mission creep. Is way easier, right? Then staying focused. And I think that’s, you know, we can go into Newton’s second law of thermodynamics.

Entropy increases over time, which just means things get more complicated as time goes on. We want to keep things streamlined and straightforward. It’s the same conversation that we have in our growth strategy around, you know, who are your ideal donors? So I’m not trying to mix the two, but it’s the same philosophy.

There are a subset of your donors that produce the outsized returns for your nonprofit. So I, [00:15:00] I promise you, if you looked at your, you know, your donor base, you cracked open QuickBooks, I promise you, we could find 20 percent of your donors producing over 80 percent of your nonprofit’s revenue. I would, I would put all my money on that because we’ve done it a jillion times and it always comes out the same way.

It’s also the Pareto principle for anyone who’s curious about that. It’s just a fact. It’s the same. It’s how the world works. The same is true of your programs, right? There’s a subset of your programs that produce the most impact, the most societal impact, the biggest change, the outsized returns, not just of your time as a nonprofit leader, as a nonprofit employee, but also of your funders revenue.

And so the whole conversation then goes to. Impact is the destination, innovation is the path. Going back to An Mai Chang, CEO of Candid, she’s done many wonderful things of her career. She’s a rock star. What she’s really making it clear is like, focus on the things that create the greatest impact, innovate there, [00:16:00] so that you create more impact leverage for your nonprofit.

How can you make the money go further? How can you make a greater impact with the same resources? You start to get rid of all of these peripheral, not as impactful things. They might be important, but not as impactful things. The reality is it’s impossible to scale. Anything with complexity, simple scales, complexity fails.

I know it’s a cute little rhyme. It’s just true. I’ve done it to myself too many times. It doesn’t work, but it’s got to be simple if it’s going to grow. 

[00:16:34] Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah. Oh, I feel that for sure. I have, uh, definitely experienced that in my business. And I think about ROI. Um, Like what is the ROI on a particular program?

Is this particular program profitable? And so, uh, you know, we’re, as we’re talking about sort of scaling down and focusing on what we know works, I’m always looking at the financials of [00:17:00] that as well. And, you know, we’re nonprofits and not every program is going to be like, quote unquote, profitable. But I have seen organizations where, you know, they have a whole bunch of different programs.

And maybe there’s this one over here that not only is the programmatic impact, not, you know, sort of on par with the rest of the organization, but the fundraising goals are also missing. And it’s also super expensive to run that particular program. And so all those factors combined, I think can help, you know, help the organization make.

Difficult decisions, really, but with sound data instead of like, oh, I feel like this program isn’t working. Maybe we should shut it down. It’s like, well, we have these data points that all are pointing to the same thing. We’re looking at the financials. We’re looking at the fundraising. We’re looking at the programmatic impact and nothing is really, um, aligning or, you know, We’re meeting our goals.

And so now we have to make this decision and we can do that really easily and clearly. And so I love this sort of combination of looking at, um, you know, these three different areas, all with data to help drive [00:18:00] decision making. And that’s what I talk about all the time with financials. The whole goal is for leaders to understand their finances so they can use those numbers to make decisions.

That’s what we want to do. So I would love to. shift a little bit and talk about how do we communicate that data? Because, all right, let’s say that we’ve got the system set up and we’re able to pull the information that we want to see. How do we talk about this in a way that is easy to understand, that is compelling, that is interesting?

How do we communicate that data? 

[00:18:34] John Mark Vanderpool: Such great. I loved your recap so much. So I want to talk just a little bit about that and then we’ll dive into the marketing side because it was such a great just synopsis of the way financial experts look at things. Right. And so before we worked exclusively with nonprofits, we worked with private equity and venture capital firms all the time.

And they’re very efficient at saying no. Dropping things and throwing it to the side. Hey, we, [00:19:00] I know we funded your business before. We’re not going to fund it anymore. And it might go die. That’s not our problem. And that seems really harsh. Right. And it can be extraordinarily harsh. Nonprofits we’re like, yeah, this program still provides a value for these people, but it’s not going to help us grow, but we can’t stop doing it.

You know, it’s a harder conversation, right? Because we’re trying to make a difference. We’re not just trying to make money, private equity, venture capital. It’s a totally fine thing. It is all about making money and that is totally fine. I’m not judging that. Yeah. We’re trying to make an impact. And so when we’re looking at the resources that we have available, we still have to make some tough decisions, right?

They can still be pretty harsh. And when you’re going in providing these non profit leaders, talking about Stephanie with 100 Degrees Consulting, when you’re going and providing these insights, it’s invaluable information to make decisions with. That’s why we love the combination of how do we get the financial data and the program data, or operational data, if we want to call it that, to work well together.

Because when I know what my outputs are, like if I know, okay, 10, 000 meals [00:20:00] this month, and you’re telling me that it cost 100, 000 that month for those meals, I know what my dollar per output is. I’ve got that data now. And now we can go back and say, is this hot? Is this low? Is this effective? Are we doing this the right way?

Where can we then innovate to make that from, I don’t remember the numbers I use, but 10 a meal down to 5 a meal. That’s a huge innovation. I want it. Everyone deserves a big high five and a big hug to go from a 50 percent drop in cost there. It’s huge. But then you get it down to 1. How did you pull that off?

That’s insane. That’s a 90 percent reduction in cost. Wow. How did you do that? 99 percent or whatever the numbers were on that. It’s huge. It’s huge. And so looking at that, that’s where we really start to innovate because it ha you have to have the financial data to really make the whole, you know, the whole machine really hum, right?

You want to make some music. You can’t do it without finances. And so then when it goes into great, I’ve got data from operations. I know what my [00:21:00] programs are doing. I’ve got data from finances. Now let’s go sell this thing, right? Let’s go bring it out to the marketing and development world. This is where everything starts to come together with a continuity, right?

And this is where it’s super fun because if anyone’s ever heard of StoryBrand, you know, Donna Miller started this company forever ago called StoryBrand. We were one of the original, um, StoryBrand guides that they had. I think we were their first or third class, something like that. It was super fun, great group.

And we maintain that certification because we love what StoryBrand is doing. One of the big takeaways that is such an unlock for nonprofits is positioning the donor as the hero of this story. Right? And so I’m saying this story very intentionally because they’re not the hero of every story. They’re the hero of this story.

Because they’re the financial machine, they are your business model, right? Your ability to raise money from donors is what’s feeding the beast, right? Feeding the non profit here. So they are the hero of that story. Now, if I’m trying to recruit volunteers, [00:22:00] that’s a different hero, right? Don’t volunteers, the hero of that story.

I’m trying to recruit employees. They’re the hero of that story. And that really is the whole thesis of StoryBrand is that you want to make your customer, your donor, your volunteer, your employee, your board member, whomever, not you as the hero of the story. The nonprofit gets to be the guide and our time helping all these VCs and private equity folks raise money.

It was so fun because we get to position the venture capitalists, but now as the nonprofit, they’re the guide. You’re the expert in impact for your specific world. No one should know how to create an impact better than you with the programs that you have. Like you are that expert. Just use this case, I am in no way, shape or form the guide when it comes to nonprofit finances.

Stephanie is right. She’s built a company on her expertise. She’s the guide. She’s been there. She’d done that. She’s got the t shirt. She’s growing her team. And [00:23:00] so think about you as the nonprofit. It’s the same thing. You are the expert in impact and your donors want to buy impact. I’m putting this in business terms.

They want to buy it. So you’re selling impact to these donors. It’s the outcomes of your programs. That’s, that’s what they want to give to. They want to know what is the long term benefit to the people that you serve that my money’s going to. And that’s where things really get exciting. So position your donors as the ear of the story, constantly remind them with impact data in stories of transformation.

If you do that regularly, 80 percent of the time, if you do those three things, you are going to do well. Like, it is just going to put you in a position to succeed. 

[00:23:39] Stephanie Skryzowski: Mm hmm. I love that. And I like that you mentioned the impact data and stories of transformation because I feel like, I feel like the two go hand in hand and you really need both.

And we’re all human. And so we resonate with stories. And if you can back those stories with data points that are substantiated and [00:24:00] sound, then that’s really, I think that’s sort of like the magic combination. And then. Yeah, I definitely talk about this with numbers as well and using your numbers to tell a story.

And so, yes, we’ve got the numbers about your financial health, but how does that translate into what your organization is doing and the impact that you’re having? So I love, um, I love that you mentioned both because I do think that that’s, that’s really important to have the storytelling. Are you tired of navigating the labyrinth of software options?

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I’m thinking about different organizations that I’ve worked with where there’s different departments where we’ve got our program people, we’ve got our fundraising people, we have our like, ops and finance people. And as much as we wish that we all worked together perfectly, that’s not always the case, but That’s really important to this ecosystem of gathering data, of using data, of communicating data and communicating your impact.

And [00:26:00] so what have you seen, um, you know, work really well to help people in different departments work together to provide this really cohesive picture of social impact data, or maybe what have you seen like work not so well, or what tips do you have for us there? 

[00:26:15] John Mark Vanderpool: Great perspective and great questions. I know the word organization might have the same root as organized, but that does not mean that every organization is organized.

So it’s, it’s okay that things are messy, right? It’s okay that you might think, goodness gracious, how in the world is this going to happen? And so we have, like, going back to what Stephanie was saying earlier, just like starting simply with things. Like, this is not a sprint. If I want to talk about mistakes, if you want me to talk about mistakes, I would say trying to sprint through.

What is essentially an organizational overhaul is never a great idea unless you’ve got unbelievable resources, right? Which is, uh, you know, less than 5 percent of the non profit, non [00:27:00] profit space, the sort of, the kinds of resources that I’m talking about. What you want to do And what we’ve seen work well, I’ll just put it that way.

What we’ve seen work well is that we do start with our theory of change, right? And there’s this great group out of the University of Utah. They’re called the Sorenson Impact Summit. And they’ve done really extensive work in this space of just helping organizations see what is the spectrum of impact measurement.

And the first step is that theory of change. And that’s why we talk about it. All day, every day and twice on Sunday, right? Start with your theory of change. And so when we get the right people together from ops, from, you know, from finance programs and marketing and communications, just getting people in the room once a month is a huge, huge step.

Like let’s build out our theory of change. Now I do want to say theory of change is, Sometimes they get drug out over a very long period of time. I do not recommend that they can always be updated, right? There’s a phrase that we say in the story brand community is that you don’t [00:28:00] laminate your brain script, right?

Which is one of the foundational documents of a story brand, you know, story brand company. It’s that you always update these things. And so we’ve seen nonprofits take, you know, a year and a half to complete a theory of change. Not even for a second, right? Like, let’s make this a 90 minute meeting, and this is version one.

So we want to iterate and improve. We don’t want to drag things out. And so getting the right people for marketing, communications, development, finances, and operations, just get the right people in the room. And for some of you, you might be thinking, yeah, I’m three of those roles. So I might be representing all three of those people.

And that’s totally fine. That’s completely fine. That’s not an issue. It’s just, we want to get the right people in the right room. And we want to have a conversation around our theory of change. Step two is around key performance indicators, right? We want to talk about what do we need to start measuring internally to know that we’re living into our theory of change, right?

So I love using the analogy and every watch has a heart [00:29:00] rate monitor on it. I shouldn’t say every, a lot of watches have heart rate monitoring. The thing is your program. Is always producing impact the same way that my heart is always beating. Gratefully for now, at least it’s still be the differences. I don’t have to measure it anymore because I have a heart rate monitor where I hit one button and it tells me, Oh, cool.

My heart rate’s at 58 beats per minute right now. Fabulous. That’s the kind of thinking that we want to do on our program evaluation by just looking at our, our theory of change. Where’s the heart rate monitor that we need to put on this program? What does it need to be measured? So yes, my heart’s still beating, but I don’t have to keep my finger here all day, every day, for those of you who are listening, my fingers on my neck, checking my heart rate, we don’t have to do that anymore.

We just want to build a little process, build a process map, and then determine where do we need to measure KPIs to know that we’re living into it. Then step [00:30:00] three is we want to start surveying or there’s different forms of this, but we can survey, do questionnaires. We can do focus groups with the people that we serve, right?

With our constituents, beneficiaries, whatever term you want to go with here to determine how is our program making a difference in your life. Now, what I would strongly recommend doing is do not create the survey yourself. There are academicians that have been out there forever creating wonderful peer reviewed, validated research tools.

That is why my partner is a doctor in public health, and that’s why we take such a rigorous approach to this. You don’t just want to say, hey, I came up with this thing on SurveyMonkey, and we’ll see if it works. There are actual surveys that are out there that you can find, you know, on PubMed, Google Scholar, other types of research databases to know if it’s working.

But that’s, that’s level three and there’s a big jump from level one to level three. Now levels four and five are much more complicated and I don’t think it’s worth getting into that right now. So are we talking randomized control trials? That’s not what we need to talk about right now. It’s [00:31:00] really just, let’s get our theory of change.

Let’s start measuring things in our work management software, Asana, Monday, whatever it is that you use, and then let’s start surveying our people. If you’re doing those three things, If you’re doing any one of those three things, but if you’re doing those three things, you are a home run nonprofit and you are absolutely swinging for the fences with measuring your impact and you should be disproportionately rewarded in the terms of money for your nonprofit.

Like you’re doing the hard work to measure your impact. You really just need to get that in front of the right donors and fundraising will no longer be like your huge constraint. Right. It’s like, we have the data and there are donors that are out there. I promise you donors that are out there that want to fund data driven nonprofits like yours, assuming you’re doing those three things.

[00:31:48] Stephanie Skryzowski: Mm hmm. I love how you broke that down so easily into, you know, into steps. The theory of change, KPIs, and then serving your beneficiaries and that, you know, [00:32:00] that sort of combined together will help amplify your fundraising. I love that. Can you give some, um, just some examples of KPIs and again, for anybody listening this like, wait, what was a KPI again?

And there’s a key performance indicator. Can you give some examples of like what a KPI might be or, you know, what KPIs are for like some of your clients? Yeah. 

[00:32:22] John Mark Vanderpool: That’s a good question. So I should have said this earlier. So thank you. This all ties back to your theory of change, right? So in your theory of change, you’re going to build out inputs, Outputs, short term outcomes, and long term outcomes.

When we start to look at our KPIs, we want to make sure that they are leading into those inputs and outputs first steps, right? We want it to be, and this is such a great life hack in anything. And I’m so grateful for people like James Clear from Atomic Habits and people like that, that just really did a great job with this, but it’s, if we can track our inputs, the outputs and outcomes can take care of themselves.

It doesn’t mean they absolutely will, but [00:33:00] they can’t, right? So if I know. If my job as a, let’s just say we’re a nonprofit that does, um, food distribution in Buffalo, New York, where you are, right? So we’re more of a, you know, a food bank. You know, if my job is to source food, whether that be through donations or whether I need to go with corporate partners, if my job is to, okay, I need to go source rice, which is an easy example.

My input is how many people do I need to call? How many, how much rice do I need to source? Source 10 tons of rice per quarter. It’s like, that’s the kind of thing that we would start tracking. It’s super simplistic. Let’s say, hey, John Mark’s doing a pretty good job at programs. He got 10 tons of rice this quarter that we can distribute at our food bank.

And so we think about specialization and being really, really clear with that. But then we can track, that’s what we acquired from a rice standpoint. What do we distribute? Well, now we’re talking about outputs. So [00:34:00] now we’ve gone to the next level of that theory of change is 10 tons of rice distributed through our, you know, through our food bank.

Well, now we know that’s the difference is we didn’t know before. Now we know we can start to build a comprehensive theory of change. It’s like, well, what happens when we’re delivering this much rice? Because what we’re trying to do, long term outcome, reduce food insecurity. Right. That’s what we’re trying to do.

We’re trying to make healthier families, healthier communities, reduced food insecurity in Buffalo, New York. I’m not speaking towards Buffalo. I’ve never been there just because you’re there, but the point being like, that’s the long term outcome. People don’t just give you money so they can give you rice.

People give to how do I reduce food insecurity in Buffalo? How do I make Buffalo a more resilient city? In the state of New York. How do I make families more resilient to economic disparity? Like what, how do we do that? That’s the impact that people give to. Not just rice, not just how much rice. Long term, how is your [00:35:00] organization making real change?

[00:35:02] Stephanie Skryzowski: I love that connection because yes, like how much rice? Sure. That’s a KPI. That’s a data point, but what is actually the long term outcome? What is the vision? And one thing that somebody, a nonprofit leader told me once was, you know, one of the reasons that they are so successful in their fundraising is because they’re really able to clearly articulate their long term vision.

In terms of outcomes for their organization. And in contrast, I, you know, speaking with another leader who didn’t feel like they were able to clearly articulate what their long term vision for their organization was or for the impact that they want to have other than. Just do more of what we’re doing right now, that’s not really compelling for donors.

And so I love that, you know, this, the theory of change is part of it is the long term impact that outcomes that your work is going to have. And I think that the key, one of the [00:36:00] keys to fundraising success is also being able to Not only articulate the data of what your organization has already done, but of what you envision those outcomes to be in the future.

So I love that that is part of it as well, because like I said, I’ve seen two organizations, one who’s like super, or they’re just really, really good about articulating it. And the other one who feels like they’re sort of faltering and I can see the differences in revenue and it’s a substantial. Yeah, this is all just, this is all tied in so, so nicely.

[00:36:33] John Mark Vanderpool: That’s a great point. And it’s, it goes back to when you make the donor of the hero of the story, it’s, well, what’s the story? How does the story end? I grew up watching a lot of Westerns. And so you think about what’s the right, right enough into the sunset moment of what you’re trying to do here. And the reality is when you’re the guide, you get to tell these stories in a way to your donors, be like, this is what, this is part of your ride off into the sunset.

Just using the fictitious example from earlier, [00:37:00] you are lowering food insecurity. You are creating more sustainable, reliable, resilient homes throughout Buffalo. That’s what you’re doing. That is an example pulled out of my ear five minutes ago, much more robust examples than that. But that’s what donors want to give to.

And people talk about, Oh man, I feel like I’m wearing my donors out with donor fatigue. I’m asking for too much money. I’m doing all this stuff. What we do is we come and say, totally hear you, tracking with you on that. We’re actually going to email them more than you currently are. You’re like, Oh, we’re doing it once a month.

I’m like, Oh, we’re going to be once a week. Oh, it’s going to kill him. That’s fine. But who doesn’t want to be told, hey, you’re amazing, two, you’re making a massive difference, three, look at the impact that you are specifically creating in this region, in this area, in this part of the world. No one unsubscribes from an email where every week you tell them how awesome they are.

I haven’t seen it. So people can, they want to be reminded of the good work that they’re doing through [00:38:00] data. And stories of transformation. I’ve heard the analogy, data is the head and the stories of the heart. You know, we want to do the head and the heart, but literally 80 percent of your communications can follow stories of transformation and data driven impact.

And we, it’s impossible to have that data if we don’t have a theory of change and if we don’t have a plan for measuring it. And to your point earlier, and I think this is, this is my high end and very intelligent financial people are so important in this conversation. It’s because you get to look at the PNLs.

You get to look at the program costs. You get to look at everything and be like, yeah, this program has existed for 15 years. It’s been flat for 15 years. Should we keep it? Because when we’re evaluating the impact of each program, you want to double down on what’s working. Just to let everyone know, you want to do the same thing with your, your marketing communications.

They’re like, Hey, we’re on 12 different marketing channels, but only one of them is working. Cut the 11 and [00:39:00] double down on the one. Like just get rid of them. I promise you it’s just utilization of resources, find the one and smoke it. I mean, just absolutely dive in, go deeper and deeper and deeper.

Otherwise you’re going to have a very, very hard time getting anywhere because you’re spread too thin. 

[00:39:18] Stephanie Skryzowski: Yeah, uh, such good advice because I encountered this in my own company, you know, we were serving small businesses and we were serving nonprofits and you know, we started with just nonprofits and then sort of expanded cause like, Hey, we can help small businesses too.

And then just went way beyond. Way too far. And yeah, and it felt like I was running two different businesses and just constantly treading water in both. And so we made the, you know, made the tough decision to just double down. And you know what, our hearts and nonprofit, our foundation is a nonprofit.

We’re going to go all in and transitioned away from serving small businesses and holy moly, like. That was the best [00:40:00] decision ever. I think there were some concerns like we’re losing a whole bunch of revenue. Like we’re not going to be able to grow from here. And Oh my gosh, we’ve like doubled in size since we did that.

So it’s just like, I just always look at my own example. And that decision came from looking at the numbers, really understanding what’s working, what’s not working here, and rather than. Put more resources into, you know, the 20 percent that’s not working. Take those resources and go all in on the 80 percent that really is.

Um, and so time and again, like, I will always come back to my own example because that like, it’s so true. And I just think that. Yeah, I feel like a lot of nonprofits are not necessarily thinking that way because they’re not thinking in terms of data, they’re not analyzing their numbers because they don’t have the right tools or the right systems in place.

So actually, back to that, we haven’t talked about systems or tools. I know you mentioned, [00:41:00] obviously, we’re starting with theory of change. Once we’ve got that down. Yeah. Where do we go from there to, like, what systems are we using? How do we even start putting things in place so we can track this data in a slightly more sophisticated way than Microsoft Excel?

[00:41:17] John Mark Vanderpool: Well, there you go. You said it. You put the nail in it. Now, Excel’s great. I’m talking to a finance person. I’m not going to talk in Excel. I’ll get shot off. I’ll get canceled from the podcast. But Excel’s not perfect. Probably not the right platform to be using when it comes to any kind of work management, right?

Because that’s really what this boils down to. Excel is wonderful at what Excel is wonderful at. And that’s, you know, crunching numbers, managing finances, doing wonderful things with lots of great stuff that we don’t get into. But when we started looking at, you know, from a rudimentary level, we are in a wonderful time in history to when it comes to very inexpensive software, right?

Well, it is just a great time to be alive when it comes to, you know, you look at. You look at Trello, you look at Asana, you look [00:42:00] at Monday, you look at, what’s that other new one, Notion, you look at all of these other platforms that are collaborative, they’re easy to use, the user interface is unreal, it’s just simple.

But what we want to do before we dive into the software is we need to build a process map for our programs, and then we can start to build out the, what programs, what software programs are we going to use to really record Our work, right? So we have a client they’re called data capacity builders alliance.

They’re wonderful, wonderful company that serves the nonprofit space. And they really do a great job of helping people soup up their work management, and they do lots of other wonderful things on top of that. And so just thinking about how do we manage our work, if this is a project management conversation, it almost doesn’t matter to me as much what you’re using, as much as it is.

Are you using something? Because almost everything can be exportable into dashboards, right? That’s just another great thing that we’re dealing with. Now, for those of you that work [00:43:00] internationally in very, let’s just say, not Wi Fi environments. Here’s what I would recommend. Because that’s where we cut our teeth, you know, as an, as what, where we started as an organization.

I would strongly recommend looking into a Google platform called AppSheet, A P P S H E E T, AppSheet. It has great offline capabilities, very customizable. It’s a low code platform. They acquired, it was acquired by Google a number of years ago. A dear friend of ours, um, that we’ve worked with for nine ish years now is an AppSheet developer.

He’s got a great company that can spin anything off. So you want to know, I would check out CREW, Q R E W, down in College Station, Texas. They do a wonderful job with CREW technologies. They do a great job of building out those kinds of low code apps. And again, that’s for offline. They can do plenty of online, but they have offline capabilities as well.

We’ve built some really, really cool apps with them over the years. Just a wonderful group. And so now that we have our workflows, all of that dialed [00:44:00] in and we know where we’re measuring KPIs, then when we want to talk to you, how do we actually measure the actual impact? You’re really talking about. Mixed methods of surveys, outside research, questionnaires, different things like that.

And again, there’s a jillion different survey tools today than there ever was. When we first started, there were like three. And so there’s, there’s a lot more at the disposal when it comes to that. And so it really is more of a modernization of your organization conversation. I know this is something you probably deal with a lot, Stephanie.

It’s like, Oh, cool. So you’re using QuickBooks desktop. We need to bring you to QuickBooks online because they’re sunsetting desktop. Or, you know, you’re not using anything. Okay. We definitely need to get you on to FreshBooks, QuickBooks, something. It’s a similar conversation, right? Because again, my heart is still beating even though I’m not measuring it.

Your programs are creating an impact right now. It’s just not being measured. And so that’s really what we want to do is build systems in place, build all of these things in place to where you can measure that impact [00:45:00] because it’s happening just like my heartbeat. We’ve got to put the, the heart rate monitor on your program so we can know what your impact is.

[00:45:08] Stephanie Skryzowski: I love that. Yeah, I give that advice all the time. Like the best tool is the one you’re going to use. Because our clients are often asking us for things beyond just, you know, what accounting software do we use? But what should we use for project management? What should we use for this and that? I’m like, honestly, it kind of doesn’t matter as long as you’re using something and you actually use it.

So yeah, I love that advice and I’m definitely going to check out. Thanks. App sheet and crew on here. So I’m going to, uh, going to check those out as well. Yeah, it’s so cool. I love getting connected to, um, I’m not like a super software person by any means. I’m definitely not a techie, but I like having a library of things to recommend to people.

So 

[00:45:50] John Mark Vanderpool: Awesome. That other one, Data Capacity Builders Alliance, they’re another great group. They’re fantastic.  [00:45:55] Stephanie Skryzowski: Awesome. Yeah, I’ve got them all up in my browser now, so I will check them out. [00:46:00] Well, this has been such a helpful conversation of, you know, really sort of clarifying and almost demystifying in a way, uh, Um, our social impact data because we, you know, when we’re thinking about data, it just like feels very overwhelming to me sometimes, but I just love how you broke things down and, um, explained it so, so clearly before we do a wrap up, I do want to ask a couple more questions.

One is a question that I ask all of our guests on the show. What does a prosperous nonprofit look like to you? 

[00:46:32] John Mark Vanderpool: I love that question so much. And so as time has gone on, as I’ve gotten, you know, lost a little bit more hair, got a little bit older, lost a little bit of hair. I don’t know if I’ve gotten any wiser, but definitely having the signs of aging, you know, it’s just helpful looking at organizations through different, through different frameworks.

And I love looking at organizations through a framework of just pipelines. And so when you think it’s easy for sale, for marketing and development, because, oh, yeah, we talk about, you know, marketing pipelines. It’s also helpful to look at programs the same way. What is our [00:47:00] inflow of beneficiaries or constituents?

What are we doing for them along the way? And then what are the outputs and outcomes? And that’s why I love theory of change because it’s a mechanistic, you know, mindset it’s how do we produce things into small parts so we can all wrap our minds around it. And then that’s how we innovate is we choose where we’re going to focus and then we innovate.

And so. I know all of this conversation around impact and stories and data and marketing and finance and all of that. It can sound complicated, but when we look at an organization as a series of pipelines that we manage, right? It really is who’s managing the marketing pipeline, who’s managing the development pipeline, who’s managing the program pipeline, who’s managing the finance pipeline, who’s managing the board pipeline, right?

Your board development, that’s a different kind of pipeline. Volunteers, employees, it’s just a bunch of pipelines. And we were able to track that up. You know, we, our logo, it’s three circles that are very much integrated together. And so we love what a prosperous nonprofit means to us is that each one of those circles are [00:48:00] departments.

So operations, finance programs, all being one program, marketing and development, making that one program. If you want to walk away with a huge hack, make your marketing, development, one program, not two or one department, not two departments, that being itself right there, and then obviously having the actual program of your nonprofit.

Yep. Your programs of your nonprofit be in its own department. So you’ve got operations and finance, you’ve got marketing and development under one, and you’ve got your programs there too. When all of the information circulates through those three things and those pipelines are being managed really well, sky’s the limit on what you can do.

Right. It’s really exciting because your impact comes from your programs, right? That’s where impact comes from. Just like my heart rate. Yeah. I checked that from my veins, and I’m not going to check my heart rate by checking my temperature. I’m doing that by putting my finger on my veins. And so we really want to think about where does our impact come from?

100 percent from your programs. There are people out there that [00:49:00] have a different point of view, and I respect them in that. Your impact comes from your programs. It’s the social change that your programs create. But what’s my dollar per output? I can’t know that unless I know what my finances are. How much did we spend on this program over this If I don’t have financial data, it’s impossible to know.

And I’m looking at my donors. Why do our donors give? What do they give to? What are they most passionate about? You know, there are a lot of CRMs that have no donor information in them at all. And it’s sort of, we’re flying blind. Like what, what do they care about? What motivated this donor to give? Do they have a propensity to give to this kind of campaign or that kind of campaign?

And so when we have just a little bit more information and we grow that slowly over time, that’s how we create like very prosperous organizations. Like healthy departments build prosperous organizations the same way. Yeah, that. Healthy families, you know, build healthy communities [00:50:00] and sort of like we focus on, we reduce things down just a little bit more and a little bit more, we can create some very, very special things.

And that’s what I love about the nonprofit space. All businesses and nonprofits are designed to solve problems. But nonprofits solve problems that businesses are not designed to solve, right? Where there is no incentive from a monetary standpoint to go solve these problems. There are exceptions to this, obviously.

But by and large, nonprofits solve very hard, very sticky, very hairy, very complicated problems. And with a little bit more data, I think we can do a whole lot more good, which is super exciting. 

[00:50:36] Stephanie Skryzowski: Mm hmm. I love that. I love that idea of the ecosystem and I love that connection between having more data and being able to do more good.

So I love that. This was so good. Such an enlightening conversation. Um, if our listeners want to find out more about you, about social impact solutions, about the work that you do, where can we find you? 

[00:50:59] John Mark Vanderpool: So kind of you [00:51:00] to ask, appreciate you asking that. So our website is socialimpactsolutions. com. We have a free quiz and a free course at fundraisingquiz.

org. If you want to check that out, it’s a great two and a half minute quiz. It takes an analysis of your marketing, your operations, your clarity, your impact data, all of that great stuff. And then it has a free course and video series that goes along with it. But we also have a newsletter called the nonprofit post that you’ll be subscribed to on our website.

When you take the quiz, but you can also just find us on LinkedIn and we have everything there as well and social impact solutions. And I’m John Mark Vanderpool at social impact solutions. 

[00:51:34] Stephanie Skryzowski: Fantastic. Well, John, Mark, thank you again so much for being here and again for just clarifying this whole idea of data, which we all know that we need, but often don’t really know where to start.

I think you really laid out exactly where we do need to start. And that is with our theory of change. That is my big takeaway. So again, thank you so much for being here. Listeners. Please go check out John Mark and social impact solutions and yeah, just [00:52:00] so appreciate you joining me today. Thank you.

[00:52:02] John Mark Vanderpool: Stephanie. Thank you so much. It’s been a delight. I appreciate you.  [00:52:06] Stephanie Skryzowski: Before you go, I just want to thank you for being here. To access our show notes and bonus content, visit 100degreespodcast. com. That’s 100degreespodcast. com and I’ll see you next time.