Thanks to innovations in outcomes-focused contracting “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” is no longer an acceptable reason to continue to operate social programs the same way every year hoping for better results. By linking payments to measurable social outcomes, Pay for Success (PFS) contracting has made data and results integral aspects of any social service. Through multi-year randomized control trials (RCTs), which test the outcomes of a PFS project, social service providers and government funders can finally quantify the impact that their programs are making in the lives of their most vulnerable residents and they can use that information to improve future iterations of the program. While this data-driven feedback loop created by PFS’s use of RCTs is critical to achieving

Third Sector’s mission of “accelerating America’s transition to a more performance-driven social sector,” exclusive reliance on RCTs keeps that acceleration at a slow crawl. Enter: Process Evaluation.

Process Evaluation is an approach to gauging outcomes and verifying program assumptions while the project is in process; the RCT is underway, but the formal evaluation is still multiple years from completion. It serves as a temperature check to see if the project is on track to achieving its desired outcomes and what changes should be made to ensure success. It identifies whether the program as envisioned is the program being implemented. It feeds the feedback loop with valuable data before the RCT concludes and while there is still time to adjust programming.

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