Cradles to Crayons

About Cradles to Crayons

Cradles to Crayons (C2C) provides children up to age 12 who are living in poverty with the basic essentials they need to be safe, to be ready to learn, and to feel valued. The C2C model serves as a bridge connecting those who have more with those who have less, breaking down some of the barriers within and between communities. C2C collects new and gently-used children’s items through community drives, processes and packages donations, and, through partnerships with social service agencies, distributes donated toys, books, clothes, and other items to children throughout Massachusetts at no charge. C2C reaches tens of thousands of needy children annually, enables social service agencies to work more effectively, and mobilizes thousands of youth and adults to learn about the problem of poverty and become part of the solution.

C2C’s Approach to Performance Measurement

Performance measurement has played a significant role in the development of C2C programs and has helped C2C identify organizational challenges and capacity-building needs. Relying on data from its network of social service partners and focusing on three general areas − productivity, customer service, and broader impact − C2C developed a performance measurement system to evaluate its impact on the children and families it serves and how it improves the effectiveness of its social service partners. To assess its performance in the areas of customer service and productivity, C2C uses its online ordering system, which contains an analytical tool that generates a series of measurement reports over varying time frames. These reports track indicators like the number of orders placed and the rates and times of fulfillment. To measure its productivity more effectively, C2C is also upgrading its volunteer registration database in order to collect data on the number of volunteers they have on board and how many hours they are spending with C2C.

C2C measures its broader impact using a qualitative survey-based approach. With the help of Bain & Company, C2C surveyed its partners in 2008, posing questions that focused on the impact of C2C’s donations on children’s self-esteem, literacy, and home safety. C2C was also interested in learning whether it was helping the agencies achieve their own mission. The survey was repeated in 2009, with additional questions that addressed the economic downturn, enabling a comparison to the previous year’s data. C2C plans on continuing to conduct a survey annually and perhaps more frequently to a subset of partner. The organization has also begun to develop an additional survey for volunteers to supplement the information received from its beneficiaries.

 The Benefits

C2C’s ability to provide tangible examples of performance data to donors and volunteers has helped them demonstrate their needs clearly and set concrete partnership goals. For example, C2C’s Gearing Up For Winter initiative was established in response to 892 unmet requests for winter coats in winter 2007−2008. Upon learning about the number of children lacking coats in the cold New England winter, potential partners were motivated to support the program. As a result, in the winter of 2008-2009, C2C was able to fill 8,400 − or 98% of − requests for coats, successfully meeting nearly double the previous year’s demand.

C2C’s commitment to performance measurement has also facilitated an internal organizational learning process, in which C2C has identified the measurement challenges it faces and ways in which they can be addressed

C2C has identified two areas for further development to improve volunteer management: (1) understanding the ratio of adult to youth volunteers needed to meet productivity goals, and (2) setting goals for each type of volunteer group (corporate, school, or family) and tracking progress against those goals. C2C is also assessing its ability to engage the broader community in concrete activities that further its mission. This is currently accomplished by capturing quantitative data from its drive and volunteer databases as well as qualitative data from volunteers, community leaders, schools, and drive coordinators. C2C is exploring new measurement tools that will be refined, tested, and incorporated once the client relationship management (CRM) system is fully in place.

Keys to Success

• Although there may be many forms of data you are interested in collecting, it is often better to start small, prioritize data that can be easily collected, and then build on the system you have in place. C2C was interested in collecting various forms of data from its partners, beneficiaries, and volunteers, but they found it necessary to start by prioritizing the data that was more realistic to collect given their capacity and then gradually expand their performance measurement system.
• A performance measurement system that demonstrates your needs clearly can provide useful data to present to funders and potential partners. By reporting how many orders they were unable to fill, C2C identified an increasing demand for their services and obtained the necessary resources to meet it.

 Additional Resources

Survey Results Summary: An internal report that shows how C2C compiles survey results for analysis.