SureImpact: Five Years of Impact
SureImpact was developed to fill a critical technology gap in the nonprofit sector by providing over 500 mission-driven organizations with automated tools to collect, analyze, and report outcome data, enabling them to demonstrate measurable impact, optimize programs, and meet funders' increasing demands for data-driven evidence of effectiveness over its first five years.
Why We Exist
SureImpact was created to address the gap in effective data usage within the nonprofit sector. After extensive research, it became clear that nonprofits using outcome data were more financially successful, built stronger relationships, and had greater impact. However, many lacked the technology to measure their impact effectively. SureImpact was developed to empower mission-driven organizations with tools to automate the collection, analysis, and reporting of outcomes and impact data, saving staff time and providing leaders with real-time insights.
Today, over 500 organizations use SureImpact to enhance their programs, inform funders, and communicate results confidently. This report highlights key people, projects, and partnerships from the first five years, as well as lessons learned and future plans.
The Current State of the Nonprofit Sector
The nonprofit sector is at a pivotal moment, moving beyond basic outcome tracking toward demonstrating measurable, lasting impact. Many organizations still rely on spreadsheets, Google Forms, survey platforms, or traditional case management software, which often fall short in showing how lives are improved—an insight funders now demand. Funders increasingly want to invest in organizations that can prove their effectiveness through data. This shift has exposed a technology gap, as there hasn't been enough investment in building technology solutions specifically for nonprofits.
SureImpact was created to bridge this gap, offering tools designed for nonprofit operations. It enables organizations to measure outcomes, optimize programs, and tell data-driven stories that resonate with funders. In today's outcome-driven funding landscape, this level of insight is essential.
Five Years of Impact: Pioneering a New Model
As more organizations began using SureImpact to track, measure, and share their impact, an opportunity emerged to help social-good organizations and their funders drive social change through collective impact. Collective social innovators are achieving what isolated efforts cannot by aligning data, infrastructure, and resources to drive large-scale impact.
Learning Collaborative Model
The SureImpact Collaborative License was designed to connect all members of a collaborative network by streamlining data collection, reporting, and analysis. This enables groups of organizations to create learning collaboratives within a shared data environment. For example, a funder can provide grantees with access to SureImpact to collect consistent, real-time outcomes data. Each organization can track its own activities and outcomes while contributing to the collective impact of the network.
These learning collaboratives take many forms, including membership groups like Texas Impact, a statewide interfaith organization, or government-led initiatives like the City of Columbus, Ohio’s afterschool learning collaborative. The data allows leaders and providers to see what works and where improvements are needed.
Before and After SureImpact
- Before: Dozens of spreadsheets, many staff hours, delayed reporting, limited visibility.
- After: Streamlined, automatic data sharing, reporting, and analysis; real-time collective impact dashboard.
Results and Outcomes Over the Last Five Years
- Number of organizations using SureImpact: 506 (projected through 2025)
- Number of clients being tracked in SureImpact: 383,800 (projected through 2025)
- Number of services provided by SureImpact customers: 547,300 (projected through 2025)
Customer Stories
Center of Hope Family Services
Center of Hope Family Services (CHFS) consolidated data from multiple programs into a single platform, enhancing efficiency and accuracy in reporting. This led to increased client participation, improved staff performance monitoring, and a 50% rise in annual revenue through better demonstration of social return on investment.
"I needed a dashboard that enabled me to check on programs at any point in time. Now if funders have questions, or our evaluation team needs access to the data, they can quickly get what they need. No more worrying about mistakes or lost data." — Dr. Tracee Perryman, CEO
The Learning Collaborative
Funded by the City of Columbus, The Learning Collaborative provides supportive environments for middle school students during afterschool hours. By leveraging SureImpact, all funded programs have access to real-time information on their impact, enabling comprehensive reporting on the effectiveness of these initiatives.
Texas Impact
Texas Impact, an interfaith advocacy organization, used SureImpact in the Houston Faith Votes project to enhance civic engagement. The platform enabled a data-driven approach to track and report on community outreach and policy advocacy efforts, strengthening impact and accountability.
"The power of SureImpact is in the data. This pilot has shown us what actually increases voter engagement. It also is helping determine how we will shape the next phase of our work." — Rebecca McIlwain, Project Manager
Future Ready Five
Future Ready Five focuses on enhancing early childhood education in Central Ohio. Partnering with SureImpact, they implemented early childhood learning screeners in preschools to drive targeted interventions and track improvements in children’s readiness for kindergarten. Children in the program demonstrated significant improvements in school readiness, language, cognitive skills, and literacy competencies.
Physicians CareConnection
Physicians CareConnection (PCC) coordinates care for high-risk populations in Central Ohio. By integrating SureImpact, PCC streamlined tracking of patient services and social determinants of health, leading to improved health outcomes and reduced reliance on emergency services at a lower cost compared to traditional care models.
"SureImpact has allowed us to track these activities in one place while providing the analytics to demonstrate the outcomes of these services." — Isi Ikharebha Green, MPH, President
The Siemer Institute
The Siemer Institute oversees a network of programs across the U.S. to help families stay housed and keep children enrolled in school. Utilizing SureImpact, the Institute standardized data collection across its network of 74 funded partners and more than 150 direct service providers. In 2024, they reported 97% school stability, 72% housing stability, and 65% income stability across the network.
"Having access to the data at the client level as well as regional level allows us to analyze results and turn that information into learning opportunities that can be shared across our network." — Kimberly Habash Dorniden, President and National Executive Director
Families Flourish
Families Flourish empowers economically vulnerable families through a 3-year holistic support initiative. Their pilot program showed a 58%/$17,000 average increased income, 110+ point higher credit scores, health and wellness improvements, and children thriving at grade level and above in their schools.
"The insights available in SureImpact enable us to understand and communicate to our donors and community stakeholders about participant improvements in areas such as health, child development, financial security, employment stability, and income." — Amy Klaben, CEO and Co-founder
What We’ve Learned
- What we measure matters. What we focus on grows. To create lasting change, we need to measure our efforts and strive to improve them.
- Collecting data is not the goal. Acting on it is. Organizations make better decisions when they can see trends and spot challenges early.
- Shared measures create stronger partnerships. When every partner in a collaborative reports on the same indicators, the focus shifts from compliance to improvement.
- Software alone is not enough. Training, guidance, and a culture of learning are as important as having the right tools.
- True, measurable change is possible. Over 500 organizations are growing and sharing their impact.
- Funders will and want to pay for impact measurement. Funders are asking nonprofits to provide impact and outcomes data and understand the effort and investment it takes.
- Organizations who measure and share their impact expand their budget and influence. Nonprofits that can prove their impact are three times more successful at raising money than those who can’t.
What Comes Next
There is a critical need to continue developing technology that maximizes social impact and simplifies communicating that impact with funders and stakeholders. The next phase will focus on:
- Strengthening support for learning collaboratives
- Building tools that support equity-focused measurement
- Leveraging AI for greater automation and insights
- Expanding the funder-grantee model
- Providing deeper training and capacity-building support
SureImpact is committed to helping more organizations use outcome data in meaningful ways, rooted in the belief that social impact can be measured, improved, and shared.
Related
Nonprofits
SureImpact is an all-in-one case management and outcomes reporting software designed for social-change organizations, offering person-centered care, real-time analytics, and customizable data tracking to help staff efficiently connect clients to resources, demonstrate impact to donors, improve program performance, and scale social impact through data-driven decision-making.
Nonprofits
SureImpact is an all-in-one case management and outcomes reporting software designed for social-change organizations, offering person-centered care, real-time analytics, and customizable data tracking to help staff efficiently connect clients to resources, demonstrate impact to donors, improve program performance, and scale social impact through data-driven decision-making.
Funders
SureImpact offers funders a comprehensive grant reporting platform that standardizes data collection across grantees, provides real-time, centralized analytics to measure and compare network-wide impact, enhances transparency, and supports data-driven decisions to maximize social return on investment and improve organizational effectiveness throughout the social sector ecosystem.
Sustaining Momentum In Collective Impact
The article discusses the challenges of sustaining momentum in collective impact initiatives, emphasizing that as progress slows and emotional fatigue sets in, leaders must reconnect with the coalition’s original shared purpose to combat disengagement, prevent burnout, and renew energy, trust, and resilience necessary for long-term systems-level change.
Trust Based Philanthropy Why All Five Elements Of Trust Matter
Sheri Chaney Jones, CEO of SureImpact, explains that trust-based philanthropy relies on five key elements—competence, reliability, authenticity, empathy, and intent—to build equitable, mutually respectful relationships, emphasizing that while empathy and authenticity are often highlighted, competence and reliability are equally crucial for funders and nonprofits to demonstrate mutual accountability, foster confidence, and achieve impactful, transparent outcomes.
Transforming Trauma Into Triumph The Life Changing Work Of Columbus Recreation And Parks
The Columbus Recreation and Parks Department, recognized with a 2023 NRPA Innovation Award for its VOICE program supporting survivors of violent crime, transformed its trauma-informed youth and community services by adopting SureImpact’s user-friendly, customizable software, which enhanced data tracking, streamlined case management, and empowered staff to efficiently document interventions and focus on equitable community wellness and violence prevention.