What matters : investing in results to build strong, vibrant communities

Many organizations do amazing work and provide essential services that make an important, positive impact on the people they serve. But we live in a system oriented around activities and outputs, and this output orientation forces too many to spend too much time and effort complying with red tape, leaving no flexibility to innovate. Fortunately, we can do better. Orienting programs and funding around outcomes fundamentally changes this dynamic. In an outcomes-oriented system, service providers and funders partner to effect lasting outcomes they both seek. But, to realize the potential of this new approach, we need to be clear about how this contrasts with business-as-usual and focus on the hard work ahead. Reorienting our system around outcomes and results requires a new social contract between those who deliver social services and those who pay for them. In communities across the country, everyday people in government agencies, community-based service organizations, and charitable foundations are already showing how orienting around outcomes and results is practical and powerful. They are making the extraordinary routine. The chapters in this book capture some of their experiences.