Outcomes Measurement in the Australian Community Sector: A National Report Card (2019)
25/05/2020
Published: April 2019
Authors: Zoe Callis, Ami Seivwright and Paul Flatau
Published by: Bankwest Foundation, Western Australia (with the UWA Centre for Social Impact)
This research paper examined the understanding and extent of outcomes measurement amongst community-sector organisations. It presented findings from the national rollout in 2018 and 2019 of the Outcomes Measurement in the Community Sector Survey. The first two rounds of the survey, conducted in 2016 and 2017, were restricted to community organisations operating in Western Australia. Invitations to complete the survey in both years were emailed to every community sector charity registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission. 390 organisations participated in 2018 and 349 did so in 2019. Response rates were relatively low which needs to be taken into account when assessing results.
Despite an overall decrease in the prevalence of outcomes measurement, the majority of medium-sized and large organisations reported greater effort being put towards outcomes measurement in the past year. The majority of small organisations reported dedicating the same level of effort to outcomes measurement between 2018 and 2019. The use of a variety of data collection methods remained quite stable, albeit low. There were no methods that the majority of organisations used more than once per year, though the majority reported never using several methods; namely, longitudinal questionnaires, standardised sector tools, valuation data, administrative data, standardised questionnaires, standardised government tools and standardised funder tools. This indicates significant room for learning and development with regard to outcomes measurement in the Australian community sector.
The divide between the (high) proportion of respondents who agreed that their organisation understood and measured its outcomes well, relative to the (low) proportion that agreed that the sector understood and measured its outcomes well, suggests that the sharing of best practice is lacking and that there is an overall lack of coordination in the community sector and on the part of government on the achievement at the population level of outcomes.
The full report is available here.