Impact Stories: GreatNonprofits & Social Reviews for Charities
How Socially-Sourced 360 Feedback Helps People Understand Charity Impact
Think about the last time you bought something online. Did you look at Amazon or Google reviews first? Did you use Yelp to find a great local restaurant or TripAdvisor to coordinate your last adventure? When researching a new job, did you look at Glassdoor to see what other employees think of the company culture?
If you are like millions of people online, you did. And it makes sense: you are trying to get past “marketing speak” to look at what *real* people have to say about a particular product, service, or company. In fact 8 out of 10 consumers now trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, according to a recent Consumer Review Study.
Outcomes and Not Overhead: A 360 View of Performance
Online, 360 feedback is now being incorporated into employee giving and corporate matching programs and the nonprofit sector at large (see this story on net promoter scores for nonprofits here). In part, that’s because there is a push to really understand nonprofit results and outcomes – and get beyond the overhead myth. For years, people were urged to look at overhead ratios to guide their choice of charity. But such information reveals nothing about a charity’s impact on the people it serves. Socially sourced reviews provide a better way to evaluate nonprofits by displaying on-the-ground feedback. That’s where organizations like GreatNonprofits come in handy.
