Our Methodology

Why and How We Measure Impact at New Story At New Story we measure impact to quantify how a home creates change, improve our work and learn what to iterate on to optimize our impact. Do we have to do this? No. Lots of organizations don’t. Many nonprofits will only tell you the number of scholarships given, people helped, vaccines delivered, etc. We know the true impact is much deeper than these “vanity” metrics. We’re hyper focused on improving our model and behavior change, so doing our best work involves measuring our impact and iterating to improve. Our Methodology (how we measure) A home impacts many aspects of quality of life. At New Story, we collect impact data via a household survey, given once every 6 months to a head of household in the family. Through our survey we track impact metrics in the following indicators: Health & Wellbeing Economic Opportunity Education Community +Quality of Life +Occupation +Highest Level of +Changes made to the +Satisfaction +Previous Home +Education Attained by home +Stress Ownership Heads of Household +Time Spent at Home +Primary Source of +Household Monthly +School Attendance (El +Accomplishments Drinking Water +Income (El Salvador Salvador Only) +Benefits +Water Purification Only) +School Performance (El +Community Changes +Health Concerns +Household Assets Salvador Only) +Safety +Frequency of Illness +Privacy +Sleep Quality +Security +Ideas for Community Improvements Lean Data We use a Lean Data approach pioneered by our friends at Acumen to collect actionable data from our beneficiaries. Here’s why we choose to collect impact data via a Lean Data approach. ● It’s human & beneficiary centric - our survey takes less than 30 minutes to administer, is designed to be conversational and gives beneficiaries the opportunity to share their experience with our donors. ● It’s decision centric - we use a mixed-methods approach to collect quantitative and qualitative data to not only track impact metrics but learn how we can improve our process and operations. ● It’s fast - we collect data via a tablet or mobile phone that syncs with wifi. So we can get data as close to real time data as possible. ● It’s lean - While the name “lean data” might have implied this… , using low-cost technology means we can easily iterate on survey questions with our local partners and update them for instant use.