Outcomes and Outputs

Piper program directors work with grantseekers to ensure that results and measures are clear. We ask applicants to indicate the results expected and how the organization will measure success. Measures can include outputs and outcomes:

• Outputs are typically numerical and would include the number of clients served, attendance rates and programs held.
• Outcomes are deeper measures of how well the project achieved mission, goals or solving root causes.

The primary measures of capital campaigns tend to be outputs although impacts can be appropriate to determine whether the capital campaign achieved its ultimate goal. In a capital campaign for a new hospital, the amount of money raised and the progress in construction would be outputs. The impact on the health of those in the immediate neighborhood might be an appropriate outcome.

Programmatic grants should typically emphasize outcomes over outputs. Programs almost always have a theory of change that can be either implicit or explicit. Because of the intervention or service provided, there is an expectation that lives will change. Piper Trust wants to know how the organization hopes to change lives and what one or more indications of success would be.

We are not looking for sophisticated research or rigid quantitative goals but a statement in simple language of what difference will result and how you will measure success. Trust staff is happy to assist in preparing this part of the grant application.

For some grants, Research and Evaluation staff may work with grantees in designing a more formal evaluation to measure program results.

See “Measuring Impacts: An Introduction to Evaluation”…