To ensure that our work yields concrete results, CRE has developed various measuring tools to assess immediate and long-term changes in our Clients' organizational capacity and performance. From follow up interviews and written surveys clients are invited to offer feedback and criticism on our methodology and our consulting team's performance; this information is fed back into our quality assurance efforts. We also develop custom surveys to analyze the impact of initiatives on specific issues and communities.

CRE's five-year longitudinal study, titled Measuring Impact: An Evaluation of CRE's Capacity-Building Program, is the first and largest of its kind. CRE partnered with Dr. Barbara Blumenthal (a researcher in the field of nonprofit capacity-building and visiting professor at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School who recently joined CRE's staff) to design this empirical study that, starting in 2004 and running through 2009, will survey 500 clients and the CRE consultants who work with them. The research will produce hard data to strengthen CRE's practice while initiating a new dialogue among funders, clients and management consultants on capacity-building.

For an overview of CRE's Research & Evaluation Systems, click here.