Measure Your Life—and Your Nonprofit—in Love

In 1996, composer, lyricist and playwright Jonathan Larson asked a question that would soon become the tell-tale sign of musical theatre fans everywhere: “How do you measure a year in the life?”

One of the most recognizable songs from his hit musical Rent, “Seasons of Love,” explores the question of how to measure the impact of someone’s life over a year. 

Instead of measuring a year in five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes, Larson suggested something much more meaningful.

“Measure in love.”

Sure, a year can be measured in minutes, but what does that really tell us? Was the year joyous? Did you accomplish something? Lose someone? Or do the numbers simply tell us how much time has passed?

Nonprofit organizations wrestle with how to measure what matters every day. 

Fundraisers are constantly asked to quantify impact.

How many people did you provide services to last year? How many programs do you operate? What is your organizational budget?

All numbers. All important.

But what if there’s more to the story than numbers? 

Something I learned early on in my fundraising career was to differentiate outputs from outcomes. Outputs are what happened. Outcomes are the change it caused.

Outputs are easy. You can count meals, appointments, people, workshops, nights of shelter. Outcomes ask a harder question: what actually changed for the person receiving them?

Providing housing to 100 people is the output. Increasing housing stability, reducing stress, stabilizing families… that’s the outcome. Measuring in love means asking what those outcomes actually meant for the human being experiencing them.

It looks like a mother who doesn’t have to worry about whether her children will have a safe place to sleep. After all, a nonprofit whose mission is to end homelessness isn’t simply in the housing business—it exists to help people experience life differently. What becomes possible when a person’s basic needs are met? 

Maybe that mother sleeps through the night. Maybe her child has somewhere quiet to do homework. Maybe she can think about finding work because she isn't spending every waking hour figuring out where they're going to sleep.

Those aren't necessarily things that show up in “100 people housed,” but they're the actual human consequences contained inside that number.

You may know the work is meaningful, but sustaining that work will always involve measuring it. When assessing your organization, it can be tempting to focus on your reach by relying on numbers. The breadth of services, the volume of people served. These are the metrics easiest to capture and most readily available. But those numbers alone don’t do your work justice.

So the next time you’re designing organizational metrics, look at the numbers. 

The next time you’re evaluating a program, evaluate the numbers.

The next time you’re answering a donor’s questions about impact, share the numbers.

But don’t forget the people behind the numbers. Don't stop measuring when you've counted the service. 

Measure beyond the service to understand what changed in someone's life—not just how many days passed by or how many services they received.

Measure in love.