About Success Measures

About Us

Success Measures is a nonprofit evaluation and learning strategy consulting team. We operate as a social enterprise within NeighborWorks America, a national affordable housing and community development nonprofit that strives to make every community a place of opportunity.

For over twenty years, we’ve supported community-based organizations, funders, and national nonprofits in all fifty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to better understand their outcomes and impact. We’ve worked with over a thousand organizations focused on improving the places, systems and conditions needed to create healthier and more resilient communities. 

We support improving lives and strengthening communities by enabling organizations to gain insight into their impact across a holistic community development focus that includes housing, neighborhood revitalization, community engagement, arts and culture, health outcomes, financial capability and resident leadership.

You can read more about Success Measures’ origins and evolution on our History page. 

Success Measures’ Services

Success Measures helps the organizations we serve identify — at the outset — how they will use the evaluation and learning findings to address their goals and challenges. These organizations have used their findings to tell stories about impact, communicate learnings back to the community and inform high-level strategies. Our team of experienced staff and consultants brings professional evaluation and content expertise to every project. We listen and candidly collaborate to build trusting relationships as thought partners and advisors.

We help document results and strengthen internal evaluation and learning processes. We meet organizations where they are to address their evaluation and learning goals and the mission of the organization, supporting meaningful and enduring change.

We accomplish our work using a wide spectrum of expertise, technology and types of support:

• Full range of evaluation consulting and technical assistance services from planning through communicating findings and helping organizations use the results.
• Strategic learning processes that facilitate real-time reflection and application of learning to respond to and adapt strategies.
• Thought partnership and advisory services for evaluation, learning and grantmaking strategies.
• Tailored tool sets including surveys, observation checklists and interview guides.
• Technology support for community data collection through the Success Measures Data System.

Our Values and Approach

Success Measures’ work is rooted in the principles and practices of participatory evaluation. To all of our work, we bring a longstanding commitment to collaborative evaluation and learning processes that help organizations understand and strengthen their impact and produce practical and purposeful results for residents and communities.

We support a wide variety of organizations, many of which work with communities that have had limited access to opportunities in order to ensure all individuals—regardless of background or financial standing—have the resources they need to thrive.

Key elements of our approach include:

• Centering participant experience. We value the insights, experiences, and ideas of the people closest to the issues.
• Matching methods to each project. We ensure that the evaluation design fits the needs and scale of the project.
• Co-designing the process. We engage individuals in project planning to build trust and ensure that the design and goals reflect community priorities.
• Finding measures that relate to all stakeholders. We develop measures that incorporate the perspectives and needs of as many stakeholders as possible.
• Communicating clearly and strategically. We ensure that content is meaningful to key audiences and invites feedback and questions.