IT Resource Center
Determining How to Better Serve Chicago-Area Nonprofits
After 20 years of providing technology services to Chicago-area nonprofits, the IT Resource Center (ITRC) knew it was doing a lot of things right. Marks were high for its work training nonprofits in topics from database construction to network administration, consulting on challenges from tech planning to database integration and providing tech support to its member organizations. But ITRC leadership wanted more definitive measures of its results and impacts to date to ensure that it moved forward in the right direction and best serve its members and other organizations as technological innovation and nonprofit needs continued to evolve.
ITRC had always measured client satisfaction, and believed strongly that evaluating its work was critical to continued success. But at this point, looking to the future, it needed more. Executive Director Deborah Strauss recalls the decision to evaluate ITRC's impact on its clients, "This was an unusual strategy for a management support organization like ours, but we were convinced that what really mattered was the degree to which our assistance strengthened organizations."
So ITRC turned to TCC Group for help. "We were seeking evaluation experts who approached the task as objective, observers," says Strauss. TCC Group fit the bill.
Probing Research Generates Insightful, Practical Recommendations
ITRC and TCC Group staff members worked together to craft an evaluation design incorporating measures that accurately indicated impact in the technology field and data collection methods that would work best with ITRC's constituencies. TCC Group brought its evaluation expertise to the project, while ITRC contributed its own knowledge of evaluation, nonprofit technology issues and its constituencies.
Through tapping members and non-members alike via surveys, focus groups, site visits and interviews, the combined evaluation team gathered a wealth of insights and data. As a result, TCC Group confirmed perceptions that ITRC makes technology applicable and accessible to a broad range of nonprofit clients and ITRC technology built organizational capacity toward supporting an organization's mission. And, more importantly, it identified critical issues for the future, including the need to build even more awareness and use of its services through a targeted marketing effort.
The Right Focus for the Future
TCC Group's evaluation has guided ITRC in its direction going forward -- including a stronger focus on communications articulating its outcomes and marketing -- in order to serve Chicago nonprofits even better. At the same time, through collaborating so closely with the TCC Group, ITRC is now equipped to evaluate its services on an ongoing basis.
"A bonus," says Strauss, "is that we can now demonstrate the value of our services to current and prospective members, board members and funders."
