Nonprofits are under enormous pressure to prove their work matters. Communities want outcomes, boards want evidence, staff want to know if their programs are making a difference, and of course, funders deserve transparency, accountability, and honest communications about what organizations are doing and what is changing as a result of their investment.
None of those expectations are unreasonable. The problem is that nonprofit organizations are being asked to meet those expectations often without the staffing, funding, systems, or time that is typically required. For context, most nonprofits are very small. National data show that 88% of U.S. nonprofits spend less than $500,000 annually, and 59% have annual budgets under $50,000. So while the pressure to “prove impact” has grown, the capacity organizations need to do it effectively often has not.
In fact, for many organizations, that gap may be widening. Nonprofits of all sizes are navigating a difficult moment right now, characterized by tighter funding, increased uncertainty, staff burnout, and rising demand for services. At the same time, expectations around monitoring, evaluation, learning, and reporting continue to increase. The downstream effect is that organizations are asked to be data-informed, outcomes-focused, evidence-based, equity-centered, financially sustainable, administratively compliant, and continuously responsive to changing conditions on the ground — all at once.
That is a lot to carry. And for many small teams, the result is that evaluation often feels less like a useful tool and more like another compliance burden layered on top of an already impossible workload.
The Capacity Gap in Context
Part of the challenge is that many of the ideas and beliefs that have shaped what constitutes “good evaluation” were not developed with small nonprofits in mind. Instead, modern program evaluation grew in large part alongside major public investments in social programs, especially during the expansion of federal social policy associated with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and Great Society agenda in the 1960s.
There is, of course, real value in that history. It taught us that evidence matters. Methods matter. Clear outcomes, valid indicators, strong data quality, and careful interpretation all matter, especially when you’re trying to solve big social problems with public dollars.
But it also means that accepted standards of practice were shaped by universities, government agencies, foundations, and other large institutions operating with far more infrastructure than the average nonprofit. These institutions typically have dedicated research staff, external evaluators, statisticians, data-sharing agreements, robust administrative support, multi-year timelines, and budgets large enough to support formal study designs. That is the kind of infrastructure typically required for more complex approaches like randomized controlled trials, which have long been considered the “gold standard” in program evaluation because they can provide strong evidence about whether, and to what extent, a program contributed to observed outcomes.
By comparison, a nonprofit with an annual operating budget of $350,000 may have only a small staff team — perhaps an executive director, one or two program staff, and a part-time administrative or development role — and no dedicated evaluation capacity. The same people managing programs, grants, communications, partnerships, reporting, and daily operations may also be responsible for tracking outcomes across spreadsheets, sign-in sheets, surveys, intake forms, case notes, and whatever system the last grant required. While the organization may be doing deeply meaningful work in a complex environment, it may have limited capacity to develop an evaluation plan that turns all of that activity into clear, credible evidence of impact.
This creates a disconnect where small organizations are held to expectations that assume a level of infrastructure they simply do not have.
Seeing the Disconnect From Both Sides
I have seen this disconnect from more than one angle.
My career began in educational research, policy analysis, and evaluation. During graduate school, I was trained to care a great deal about evidence, methods, assumptions, and interpretation, and I learned how important it is to be careful about what the data can and cannot say. I also learned how easy it is to overstate findings when you are eager to tell a clear and persuasive story that supports your thesis. As an early career researcher and evaluation consultant, I had the opportunity to support and design studies under large organizations and ideal conditions.
But later my work moved more deeply into nonprofit leadership, program strategy, coalition work, and organizational change management. In those roles, I saw evaluation from a different vantage point. The question was not only what would make the strongest research or evaluation design, but what an organization could actually use and sustain amid limited staff time, imperfect systems, funder deadlines, shifting priorities, community needs, and the daily pressure to keep the work moving.
What Right-Sized Evaluation Means
That combination changed how I think about evaluation and led me to this simple belief: Evaluation should be credible but it should also work in real life.
That is also the idea that led me here. I founded Measured for Good because I believe small nonprofits deserve evaluation support that respects both the complexity of their work and the limits of their capacity. They do not need watered-down frameworks or approaches, but they also do not need oversized systems that are unlikely to survive contact with everyday reality. What they need is “right-sized evaluation.”
Instead of assuming that rigor requires a longer survey, more data, a randomized controlled trial, a more complicated dashboard, or a larger set of indicators, right-sized evaluation starts with a strong understanding of the organization in front of us. What does it need to learn? What decisions does it need to make? What information does it already collect? What can its team realistically sustain? Often, the first step toward better evaluation is simplification: clarifying program logic, choosing fewer but stronger measures, and stopping the collection of information no one uses.
Toward Evaluation That Works in Real Life
Good evaluation should help organizations see their work more clearly. It should support learning, decision-making, communication, improvement, and trust. It should help teams understand what is working, what needs attention, what patterns are emerging, and what context matters. It should also help organizations communicate the value of their work in ways that are both credible and compelling.
That is the kind of evaluation support small nonprofits deserve — evaluation that respects the complexity of their work, fits the reality of their capacity, and helps them communicate their impact with clarity, credibility, and honesty.
That is why Measured for Good exists.