Data & Decisions
PEG is committed to helping organizations understand and utilize a wide range of data—market/landscape data; financial data; constituent feedback; and outputs, milestones, and outcomes—to inform their strategic, programmatic, and operational decision making.
PEG’s “Data & Decisions” practice area affectionately borrows its name from an analytics course at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
PEG has outlined our “efficacy before scale” framework in an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR). The framework reflects PEG’s strongly-held point of view that more social sector organizations should be supported and entrusted to get really good at their core work (i.e. impact) and organizational functions first, before attempting to grow.
Notable data-driven projects include:
PropelNext
Several PEG team members serve as coaches with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation’s PropelNext initiative, which supports promising youth CBOs to strengthen their programs, upgrade performance measurement tools and processes, and institutionalize the practice of using data to inform learning, performance, and continuous improvement.
Education Through Music
PEG supported a leading NY music education organization to develop a best-in-class evaluation program using a mix of assessment approaches (based on models from the University of Chicago’s Schools Consortium and Harvard School of Education spin-off “Panorama Schools,” among others). Activities included:
activity data tracking (e.g., student attendance, parent engagement);
interviews, focus groups, and surveys to gauge student, parent, teacher, and principal perception and satisfaction;
expert observation;
custom-designed standardized/normed quantitative tests; and
comprehensive case studies integrating all of the previously mentioned approaches.
New Profit
PEG undertook an evaluation project for national venture philanthropy dynamo New Profit, surveying and interviewing New Profit’s grantees, identifying key trends (based on both quantitative and qualitative trends), and providing key findings and recommendations to New Profit leadership.
PEG worked closely with leaders and staff at Tipping Point Community (TPC) to gather feedback on TPC’s grantee partnerships via development and distribution of a customized survey; rigorous analysis of 88 completed surveys using regression analysis and related statistical approaches; and subsequent follow-up interviews.
GLIDE Memorial Church
PEG supported the evaluation department at GLIDE Memorial Church to develop more dynamic, cyclical, and customized approaches to constituent feedback (in partnership with a PhD researcher at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Larkin Street Youth Services
PEG joined forces with the Bridgespan Group and Bain & Company to help Larkin Street Youth Services develop a comprehensive five-year strategic plan. Subsequently, PEG colleague supported Larkin Street to redesign key programs (e.g., education, workforce development) as well as implement a complex new agency-wide client data collection and tracking system, using the “Efforts to Outcomes” or ETO software system. In addition, PEG supported related leadership and staff training, and change management.