Working with partners to determine whether the community is making measurable progress towards end-goals.

**This case study was developed using content from the webinar, Using Clear Impact Scorecard to Achieve Local Impact and Support the United Way Global Results Framework, hosted by Clear Impact in partnership with Berkshire United Way. You can watch a recording of this webinar, as well as access helpful materials here.**

Summary of Client Results:

• BUW can more easily see the link between program performance and community outcomes. 
• BUW staff have more time to focus on the bigger picture now that many time-intensive tasks are automated and completed remotely by partners.
• BUW engages in more effective data-based decision-making, funding, and communication.
• BUW has a more accurate understanding of areas of need and demographics within their community.
• BUW has a method to measure long-term progress towards community wellbeing and engage in Results-Based Accountability.

Pittsfield is the largest city and seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Like many New England manufacturing centers, it experienced a significant economic decline in the latter part of the 20th century. However, with environmental initiatives, industrial property reconstruction, and growth in arts and entertainment, the city has redefined itself as a cultural and economic powerhouse. For example, Forbes ranked Pittsfield as number 61 in its 2006 list of Best Small Places for Business. In 2009, Massachusetts chose the city to receive a 2009 Commonwealth Award, the state’s highest award in the arts, humanities, and sciences.

Pittsfield is also home to Berkshire United Way (BUW), which has revealed a different side of the city and county. Based on data collection funded by BUW in 2014, 7,846 low-income families were living at 200 percent of poverty in Berkshire County (24% of the county’s population). By comparison, the state average is 19.7%. Over the past six years, some indicators have improved, but the percentage of families in poverty was higher in 2018 than in 2014. Indicators in childhood literacy and positive youth development have also declined, with dropout rates reaching a 5-year high in 2018 and early reading scores reaching a low-point in 2018.

BUW is working to turn the curve in the right direction on these indicators with community partners’ support. Currently, BUW funds around 42 programs across 28 local organizations to improve literacy, provide good job opportunities, and eliminate poverty through educational pathways. To ensure the community is making long-term progress, BUW uses data to identify issues and measure results and outcomes. By measuring results, they ensure programs are useful and worthy of investment.

To effectively engage in data-based decision-making, BUW started using Clear Impact Scorecard in the fall of 2016. They worked closely with the Clear Impact team on the design of their Scorecards and features. That winter, they rolled out the Scorecard to a few of their partners. With Scorecard, they experienced many benefits, including the ability to aggregate partner outcomes, capture quantitative and qualitative data, and the ability to see the link between individual performance and collective impact. By July of 2017, all community partners were using Scorecard to measure performance.

Clear Impact Scorecard also supported BUW’s chosen accountability framework, which made the work of winning over the board more effortless. According to Julie Singley, Community Impact Program Manager at Berkshire United Way, “We were fortunate that all of the board were supportive of and recognized the importance of reporting and accountability. We had already adopted the Results-Based Accountability framework back in 2014, so we saw that the Scorecard was a natural fit that aligned with that.” She also recommends other United Ways to “Get your board to see the benefit of reporting and being accountable so that partners can improve their programs and be impactful.”

Since its adoption, BUW uses Scorecard for various purposes, from partner reporting to internal strategy development (see Fig. 1). They also use it for their coalition work, which they report on monthly. Using Scorecard is now required for all community partners that BUW funds internally for their coalition work. A coordinator of youth development is responsible for entering data monthly on coalition work activities. BUW distributes one license per organization that they fund, with about 30 organizations possessing licenses as of March 2019. Partners only have access to the Scorecards they need to complete. In addition to outcomes, BUW uses the Scorecard to develop reports on budgets 2x per year and client demographics quarterly.

Fig. 1. Berkshire United Way Strategy Map, March 2019, created with Clear Impact Scorecard.

Notably, Scorecard helps partners answer essential questions like “why does the data look the way that it does?”, “who has a role to play in turning the curve?” and “What will work to move the data in the right direction?” According to Singley, “We highly value the Clear Impact Scorecard system that helps us aggregate all of our community partner work as well as it’s able to capture both quantitative as well as qualitative data. So, our partners can share the story behind the curve and explain why the data is looking the way it does.”

Having grantees enter data remotely – rather than BUW doing it internally, contributes to better outcomes, communication, and relationships with partners. Not to mention freeing up time for BUW staff so they can focus on the bigger picture. Assigning the responsibility of data entry to grantees keeps them more engaged in the process and fosters a greater appreciation for evaluation. Grantees can access the Scorecard at any point during the year to use it for other grant opportunities and improve their programming year-round.

Since upgrading from excel, Scorecard has helped BUW streamline funding and budgeting processes. BUW asks partners for program expenses and program revenue. Instead of manually calculating measures, the Clear Impact Scorecard software automatically calculates the percentage of their funding for that program. Scorecard makes it easier for programs to have all their reporting – demographics, budget, and performance measure reporting – on the same system so that they don’t have to do things separately.

Finally, Scorecard Allows BUW to get a more accurate picture of demographics throughout the county, with the ability to drill down into smaller geographies. A separate Scorecard houses demographic data, broken out by county and the towns within each. They collect household income, marital status, gender, age, and racial data. Each program has its own Scorecard, but BUW can roll-up data to see whom all of their programs are serving in the aggregate.

To BUW, community impact isn’t just a process for making investment decisions. It’s the end game. That end game includes literate children that grow up into literate adults; happy, healthy, educated youth and financially stable people – the keys to a good life. By directing resources to programs and initiatives that meet the broad range of needs in these areas, they create sustainable change. Ultimately, Scorecard is helping BUW to see whether they are making measurable progress towards these end-goals.

Interested in learning more about Clear Impact training and tools for United Ways? Contact heather@Clearimpact.com.

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