Concentrated Impact: Why Focus, Shared Measurement, and Long-Term Data Matter in Philanthropy

By Sheri Chaney Jones, CEO & Founder of SureImpact

Philanthropic organizations face an understandable temptation to address every urgent need they encounter. Communities experience interconnected challenges involving financial security, health, housing, education, workforce development, food access, and many other issues. A funder may see worthy opportunities across all of them.

Yet spreading resources across a large number of priorities can make it harder to understand what those investments ultimately accomplish.

Lynette Bell explores this challenge in her recent Forbes Nonprofit Council article, “Growing Gardens Instead Of Scattering Seeds: The Importance Of Concentrated Impact In Philanthropy.” Bell is Head of Truist Philanthropy and President of Truist Foundation.

Her central argument deserves the attention of funders seeking meaningful, measurable community change.

Bell compares philanthropy with growing a garden. Scattering seeds across a large area may produce activity. Growing a garden calls for intention, patience, favorable conditions, sustained attention, and enough concentration of resources for something substantial to grow.

As Bell writes, “The goal should be to invest deeply enough that people, organizations and communities can keep growing long after a single grant cycle ends.”

That concept has major implications for philanthropy. It also raises an important practical question.

Once a funder concentrates its investments around a defined goal, how does it determine whether that strategy is working?

The answer requires shared measurement.

From Scattered Activity to Concentrated Impact

Bell draws on work from FSG and Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose, or CECP, which describes several ways companies and philanthropic organizations can structure their societal engagement.

A “confetti” model supports many issues and approaches. A clustered model narrows those activities into a small number of categories. An ecosystem change model brings organizations together through structured collaboration around a large societal challenge.

The concentrated impact model goes further than simply selecting a few focus areas.

Bell describes it as a disciplined approach in which an organization aligns activities around defined impact goals and measures progress over time. The organization commits enough resources, attention, relationships, and time to learn whether those investments are contributing to the desired change.

That distinction between activity and impact matters.

A funder can distribute millions of dollars, support dozens of organizations, fund hundreds of programs, and produce an impressive list of activities. Those numbers describe what happened. They provide limited insight into what changed for the people and communities the funding was intended to serve.

Concentrated impact shifts the conversation.

Instead of asking primarily, “How much did we fund?” leaders can ask:

• Who are we trying to help?

• What change are we trying to create?

• Which outcomes would indicate progress?

• How are our partners contributing to those outcomes?

• What does the data tell us about what is working?

• Where are people experiencing gaps?

• Where should we change our strategy?

• What are we learning across our network?

Those questions transform philanthropy from a collection of grants into a coordinated strategy for change.

Concentrated Philanthropy Requires Concentrated Measurement

This is where I would build upon Bell’s argument.

A concentrated impact strategy depends on the ability to measure concentrated impact.

A funder may clearly define a goal, identify strong partners, make multiyear investments, and establish a thoughtful strategy. The organization still needs a way to see whether those efforts are moving the community closer to the intended outcome.

That becomes difficult when each funded organization tracks different information in different systems using different definitions.

One provider might measure program completion. Another might measure employment. Another might measure income. A fourth might report the number of services delivered.

Every organization may have useful data, yet the funder still lacks a shared view of progress.

Technology becomes an essential part of the concentrated impact model.

Funders need systems capable of tracking outcomes across programs and organizations over time. They need common indicators that create consistency while still giving community partners room to capture information relevant to their own programs.

They also need timely access to that information.

Annual reports offer a retrospective view. Concentrated impact calls for ongoing learning.

If several partners are working toward the same community outcome, leaders should be able to see patterns across those organizations while the work is happening. They should be able to identify emerging needs, compare outcomes, recognize promising practices, and discuss challenges together.

That is where impact measurement moves from reporting into strategy.

Data Turns Focus Into Learning

Bell makes another valuable point in her Forbes article: stronger metrics focus on whether people and communities are moving forward.

Funding amounts matter. Program participation matters. Services delivered matter.

Outcomes tell a different part of the story.

For a workforce initiative, leaders may examine job placement, wage growth, job retention, or career advancement. For a financial security initiative, they might track income stability, savings, housing stability, debt reduction, or progress along a defined pathway to economic mobility.

When those measures are collected consistently over time, funders gain something much more useful than a year-end report.

• They gain feedback.

• They can see where progress is occurring.

• They can identify populations experiencing different outcomes.

• They can compare strategies.

• They can ask better questions of partners.

• They can direct future resources based on evidence.

• They can communicate a clearer account of what their investments are accomplishing.

Concentrated impact creates the focus. Shared measurement creates the feedback loop that allows the strategy to improve.

United Way of Southeast Louisiana Offers a Real World Example

A new SureImpact case study featuring United Way of Southeast Louisiana shows what this approach can look like at a community level.

United Way of Southeast Louisiana has established a Bold Goal to place 100,000 individuals living below the ALICE Threshold on a pathway to prosperity by 2035. The ALICE Threshold represents the income required to afford basic needs.

That goal creates a clear point of concentration.

United Way works across Healthy Community, Youth Opportunity, Financial Security, and Community Resilience, guided by its Blueprint for Prosperity, a community informed, data-driven framework for identifying the conditions individuals and families need to thrive.

As its programs, funded partnerships, advocacy efforts, and collaborations grew, United Way saw the need for a shared measurement system that could connect those efforts around common outcomes. Its existing processes had been built largely around individual programs and funding relationships, which limited the organization’s ability to create a unified regional view.

That is a common challenge for organizations pursuing concentrated impact.

A strategy may be concentrated at the leadership level while the underlying data remains distributed across separate programs, spreadsheets, databases, reports, and partner organizations.

United Way selected SureImpact to help create a more connected measurement structure. The platform can centralize participant and program data, measure shared outcomes consistently across organizations, monitor network wide impact through real time dashboards, identify emerging needs and service gaps, track participant progress along a Pathway to Prosperity, and support shared goals, accountability, and continuous learning.

The technology supports a larger organizational strategy.

United Way has developed a framework that aligns internal programs, funded partners, policymakers, and collaboratives around shared outcomes across four impact areas and multiple pathways to prosperity. It has also created a model for quarterly collaborative learning sessions centered on shared measurement, problem solving, and continuous improvement.

That combination is particularly important.

The goal provides direction.

Shared indicators provide consistency.

Technology provides visibility.

Collaborative learning turns the information into action.

Shared Measurement Can Strengthen Funder and Grantee Relationships

Bell also encourages philanthropic leaders to build with partners and ground decisions in both data and community insight.

Shared measurement can support that relationship when it is structured around learning rather than compliance.

Traditional grant reporting often creates a one way exchange. The grantee collects information. The funder requests it. The grantee submits a report. The information may then live inside a document until the next reporting period.

A concentrated impact model creates an opportunity for something far more useful.

Funders and their partners can agree on shared outcomes from the beginning. Each organization can contribute data to a common picture of community progress. Partners can review what they are learning together and identify opportunities for improvement.

Measurement becomes part of the work rather than an administrative exercise attached to the work.

United Way of Southeast Louisiana is building this type of structure around its Bold Goal. As its SureImpact implementation progresses, participating programs and partners will have access to more connected information that can help them track progress, identify gaps, work collaboratively, and make decisions based on current data.

The case study also makes clear that implementation remains in its early stages. The current value lies in building the measurement foundation that can support a long-term strategy and provide greater visibility into both program level and community-wide outcomes over time.

Focus Creates a Better Impact Story

Concentrated impact also changes how funders communicate.

A scattered portfolio often produces scattered stories.

One grant supported a food pantry. Another supported workforce training. Another funded a youth program. Another funded housing assistance. Each may be valuable, yet stakeholders can struggle to understand how all those activities connect.

A concentrated strategy gives the organization a clear narrative.

• Here is the community outcome we are pursuing.

• Here are the people we are working with.

• Here are the partners contributing to the goal.

• Here are the measures we agreed to track.

• Here is what the data shows.

• Here is what we have learned.

• Here is how our strategy is changing in response.

That is a much stronger impact story for boards, donors, community partners, policymakers, corporate leaders, and the people philanthropy exists to serve.

It also gives funders a better foundation for long-term accountability.

Philanthropy Needs Both Patience and Evidence

One of the strongest ideas in Bell’s article is her recognition that meaningful community change takes time.

Funders seeking concentrated impact may need to make longer commitments, build deeper relationships, invest in partner capacity, and allow strategies to develop over multiple years.

Patience, however, works best when paired with evidence.

Long-term investment should produce long-term learning.

Funders should be able to see whether people are making progress, whether strategies are producing the expected results, where gaps remain, and what changes may improve future outcomes.

The garden metaphor works well here.

A thoughtful gardener pays attention to what is growing, where growth has slowed, which conditions are helping, and where something needs to change.

Philanthropic organizations can approach impact the same way.

Concentrate resources around meaningful goals. Give partners the time and support required to pursue them. Establish shared outcomes. Collect useful data. Review that information together. Learn continuously. Communicate progress clearly.

Focus gives philanthropy direction.

Measurement shows whether that direction is leading somewhere meaningful.

United Way of Southeast Louisiana is putting those principles into practice through its Bold Goal, shared outcome framework, collaborative learning model, and investment in the technology required to see progress across its network.

Read the United Way of Southeast Louisiana case study to see how SureImpact is helping create the shared measurement infrastructure behind its Pathway to Prosperity.