Real evidence of an organization's stated impact in my opinion would be achieving one or more tall objectives that in the aggregate reflect a substantial progress towards achieving the organization's purpose or mission. Thus, for example, if the mission is purportedly "to end domestic violence," then real evidence of an impact on this national problem would be a significant reduction in domestic violence. With that criterion in mind, and also keeping in mind the nature of the NGO mission statements and the absence of any tall objectives, let's turn to the NGOs' reported impacts and achievements.
Reported Impacts
Guide Star is a 501(c)(3) public charity that provides information on NGOs, including the NGOs' submitted "impact summaries." [6] Out of the 176 NGOs contacted only 35 submitted those summaries. You will immediately understand why there are so few after seeing this small sample of excerpts: "Since our aim is to produce not merely incremental improvement but truly transformational change, in the future we will embark only on efforts that we are prepared to implement fully---." "We develop creative opportunities to mobilize and support a trans-partisan grassroots movement to recover constitutional rights eroded by the war on terror." "We are a repeated winner for being the best political source online." "We publish breaking news of interest to the progressive community." "We regularly collaborate with change-makers to bring policy closer to the people." "We will champion a bold agenda for ---ensuring human dignity for poor and vulnerable populations globally." "Our workshops attract large numbers of attendees." "We build the capacity of citizens, organizations, communities, and historically marginalized groups---to use our data to bolster their own efforts to have a voice in the political process." "We produce a variety of research reports and educational materials on issues---used to raise public awareness and to influence the US Congress and other government entities to support development efforts." "We remain open to change and growth, and to new ideas, content, and approaches in the service of our mission." We have "a long-standing reputation for engaging communities on issues of economic inequality---." We "developed five new chapters---with several more in formation---providing leadership training for local chapters--- to ensure students have all the facts when the armed services glorifies putting on a uniform in the name of "country.'"
So much for NGO reports of their impact. The ones just excerpted plus all the rest, including ones reported on the NGOs' websites, show not one whit of real impact toward achieving reported missions.
Reported Achievements.
Achievements can be graded on a continuum, starting with pseudo productivity or busyness, going on to small wins (e.g. winning a few court cases on a particular issue), and ending in an extraordinarily big win (e.g., turning America into a peace-making nation). In my assessment of the two NGOs illustrated in my midway-progress report, neither went beyond achieving some small wins. My assessment of the 174 other contacted NGOs is no different. Busyness prevails. A few NGOs achieved some small wins. Not a single one has achieved a big win.
Postmortem: The Real Impact
Anyone who knows and understands what
is happening in and to
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