92% of nonprofit organizations evaluate their work
Evaluation is a common practice in the nonprofit sector and is practiced by many different types of organizations.
28% of nonprofits have promising evaluation capacity
A quarter of nonprofit organizations engage in evaluation, had medium or high internal evaluation capacity, and had a recently updated logic model.
Outcome evaluation is the most common evaluation design
Nonprofits are focused on outcome evaluation, and also utilize performance measurement, process/implementation evaluation, and other approaches.
58% of nonprofits that evaluate have a logic model or theory of change
Many organizations use logic models, theories of change, and other similar tools to plan and evaluate their work.
6% of nonprofits that evaluate have internal evaluators
Evaluation is more likely to be led by executive or program staff than by evaluation staff.
85% of nonprofits that evaluate report that executive staff are the primary audience for evaluation
Of nonprofits engaging in evaluation, 38% use big data
Big data is a new frontier in nonprofit evaluation. A little over a third of nonprofits are making use of this powerful data.
State of Evaluation 2016
Evaluation Capacity and Practice in the Nonprofit Sector
We’re thrilled that you are interested in the state of nonprofit evaluation. We’re more than passionate about the topic—strengthening nonprofit evaluation capacity and practice is the driving force that animates our work, research, and organization mission:
Innovation Network is a nonprofit evaluation, research, and consulting firm. We provide knowledge and expertise to help nonprofits and funders learn from their work to improve their results.
For more than 20 years, Innovation Network staff have worked with nonprofits and funders to design, conduct, and build capacity for evaluation. Since 2010, Innovation Network has surveyed the nonprofit sector to provide actionable research about nonprofit evaluation capacity and practice.
In 2016 we received survey responses from 1,125 US-based 501(c)3 organizations. State of Evaluation 2016 contains exciting updates, three special topics (evaluation storage systems and software, big data, and pay for performance), and illuminating findings for everyone who works with nonprofit organizations.
