Outputs, Outcomes and Impacts

I was sitting in rush hour traffic tonight getting from Durham to Raleigh for a 6:00 PM meeting. The normally thirty minute trip took and 75 minutes. Why do I do this? I was going to a meeting of the Harvard 100, the non-profit leaders in the triangle who had been sent to Harvard by one man named Chuck ReCorr. Chuck is a Merrill Lynch broker who took it upon himself to invest in the education of non-profits’ human capital.
I was lucky enough to be in the first guinea pig class of seven that Chuck sent to Harvard to take a four day class on non-profit governance. It was a top ten life experience. Because of it I was able to be a better non-profit board member and was able to help the Food Bank of Central and eastern NC make big strides to fulfilling our mission.
Tonight was the gathering of the 86 people who have gone already and the seven new ones who are going next month. I was asked to come to a pre-meeting to give a talk about what it is like to go to Harvard and how to get the most out of it.  
What came back to me as I prepared to talk about my experience five years go is that you can almost never learn enough to help an organization improve. After I scared the chosen few about doing their 400 pages of case work before they got to Boston, I tried to convey to them how impactful these fours days can be on their whole life.  
At the main meeting four non-profit leaders who had just returned from the Harvard Program for Non-profit presidents gave a talk about what they learned, which was different from my program for board leaders on governance. They related the difference between outputs, outcomes and impacts. Outputs are the things someone does. Outcomes are what happens directly from what was done because of that output and the impact is the long term effect of that outcome. Outputs are easy to measure. Outcomes are a little harder, but still possible, and impacts are the long range story that are much less tangible.
An example in the Food Bank world is something like this. The Food Bank runs an after school feeding program called Kids Cafe, where kids come for snack, after school activity and homework help and then dinner. The outcome is that kids involved stay in and do better in school. The impact is that the kid who stays in school and learns is able to grow up to have a better job and be self sustaining, no longer is food insecure and can provide for a family.
As I looked around this ballroom of the Harvard 100 (which will reach Chuck’s goal of sending 100 to Harvard in the spring), I could see the output of his work. I know personally of the outcome all these people have had by going to Harvard. The impact is still being written, but it is immeasurable. It got me thinking abut the need for me to quantify the impact that people have had on my life and thank them for the output they put into me.  
Chuck ReCorr is an easy one to thank, but there are so many more. Of course my parents and family, special teachers and friends and colleagues. I plan on writing people and letting them know. I am suggesting to you to do the same. Many people who made an impact on you have no idea that they did it. Isn’t it time you let them know?