Bonus: How to Measure Nonprofit Impact When the Work Is Relational (Moms Connect Dubuque)

We stopped recording...and then kept talking. (As one does.)

In this bonus clip from my conversation with Kristina Heinzen and Gina Martin, co-founders of Moms Connect Dubuque, we get into a question every nonprofit leader, funder, and community builder runs into sooner or later: how do you measure impact when the work is relational and generational?

Counting is easy for most of us. A thousand meals served, fifty-five packs of diapers handed out.

But Moms Connect is building relationships with moms as they work to break patterns that kept them alive for years, and that kind of change doesn't show up in two months or by the end of a grant cycle.

They do have some early numbers, though. Kristina shares what they've tracked informally so far: 17 moms who closed their child welfare cases and haven't had them reopened, compared with roughly 85 Dubuque cases reopened within a year of closing. And not one active Moms Connect mom has experienced termination of parental rights.

What you'll hear:

• Why relational, long-term impact is so hard to fit into traditional metrics
• The early numbers Moms Connect is seeing on case closures and family preservation
• Why survival patterns take a lifetime (and a generation) to change
• What funders, grant makers, and the rest of us could learn about measuring success differently

If you haven't heard the full conversation yet, start with their full interview How Two Foster Moms Built a Nonprofit to Keep Families Together: The Moms Connect Dubuque Story.

Connect with Moms Connect Dubuque:

• Website: momsconnectdbq.org
• Facebook: Moms Connect Dubuque
• Ask them about volunteering for or donating to the Dignified Christmas Market this December

Listen and subscribe:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5YACTbRulN4NooX32NgzgV
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-found-podcast-with-molly-knuth/id1530616432

If you work at a nonprofit or a foundation, or you sit on a grant committee, send this one their way. It might change how they read the next impact report.

Now...go find something.