Most programs measure success at the finish line, with outcomes like graduation, job placement or a first paycheck. The harder question is whether that outcome holds a year, three years or ten years later.
That question was at the center of a recent discussion from the Durability Collective, a community of funders, practitioners and researchers building shared capacity to measure social impact and create change that lasts. GitLab Foundation and Generation are two of its cofounders.
Ellie Bertani, President and CEO of GitLab Foundation, moderated a LinkedIn Live conversation with Mona Mourshed, Generation’s global founding CEO, and Priyanka Yalamanchili, who leads Generation’s impact evaluation.
The panel urged organizations to decide what they want to learn before they collect data.
Generation starts with employment and then tracks job quality, retention, promotion and savings over time. Because the team built an education lens into its plan from the start, they caught something unexpected: many graduates went on to pursue more education.
Randomized controlled trials remain the gold standard, but they aren’t always feasible or ethical. Generation used a near-miss comparison in Ghana when its programs were new, and a quasi-experimental study in India ahead of scaling up.
Return on investment matters too, as long as it’s measured against what would have happened without the program. GitLab Foundation aims to drive at least $100 in increased lifetime earnings for every dollar it grants. Generation sees a three to seven times return on income over five years.
And it’s affordable. Tracking alumni two to five years out costs Generation about 1% of its total cost per learner.
Watch the full recording here.
About the Durability Collective
The Durability Collective is a community of funders, practitioners, and researchers around the world who are building our collective capability to measure social impact and create change that lasts.
