March 2011 Archives

In the last year I’ve talked with numerous private donors, state foundations, and federal agencies about assessment. I was recently in Washington, DC meeting with the National Association of Marine Laboratories to talk about strategic planning for field stations and marine labs and assessment was the primary discussion topic. Federal funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation need to know whether investing in field stations is an effective way of supporting innovation.
Assessment is a fundamental question that all organizations must grapple with. For-profit organizations can look to their bottom line as an indication of success. But mission-driven, non-profit organizations can have multiple desired impacts, none of which may be easy to reduce to simple quantitative measures. A nonprofit that fails to track outcomes runs the risk of falling into sloppy habits or being unable to articulate its value. RMBL’s Board of Trustees is working on figuring out an assessment model. How do we measure RMBL’s impact on the world? For research should we focus on the number and quality of scientific publications, or should we push harder to understand the value to society of RMBL’s research? For education, do we focus on the number of students that attend each summer and the quality of those experiences, or do we push harder to understand whether those summer experiences have impacted student’s lives in meaningful ways? Should RMBL be doing an external review, whereby we bring in outside perspectives and experts to make a qualitative assessment of our effectiveness? Working this out will allow RMBL’s Board to determine how well we are doing and provide information to guide decisions about future investments.
My sense is that RMBL will hold up very well to scrutiny. Our scientists are highly productive by any measure, including how much they publish, their ability to obtain external funding, and the extent to which they influence the national conversation on science and policy. However, maybe it is because of my scientific background, but I want to know, not just feel, that this assertion is true.