Impact is an often misunderstood concept. Many organizations attempt to measure it through tallies of goods or services provided, anecdotes about program participants, or comparisons of the circumstances before and after program delivery. However, to measure impact, one ought to have some measure of what would have happened had participants not been a part of a program or received a product or service. A randomized control trial (RCT) is one way to tackle this challenge. But prospective studies like RCTs can be costly in terms of time, organizational capacity, and money, and they do not work under all circumstances, making them inappropriate in many situations. This chapter argues that all organizations should collect monitoring data to help manage and improve programs, but that impact evaluation is not always appropriate for an organization. As desirable as it is to try to measure one’s impact, sometimes it is best to say no. This chapter introduces the CART principles, which aim to guide organizations to only collect data that are credible, actionable, responsible, and transportable.
Community Currencies as Crisis Response: Results From a Randomized Control Trial in Kenya
