United States

• U.S. equality of opportunity charity
• Example organizations: HOPE Program, Year Up

Questions:

• What populations do you target?
• What are the requirements for enrolling in your program? Are there any fees?
• Do you have more eligible applicants than you can accommodate? If so, how do you determine who is included?
• To what extent do people in your program "self-select," i.e., how many people drop out at early stages?
• What does your program consist of? How long is it? What skills do you teach and for what careers are you trying to prepare people?
• Do you track placement rates, job retention rates, and wages? For how long after the end of the program do you track job retention?
• What percentage of the people who enroll in your program have ultimately ended up in jobs that they held for at least a year? What were the average earnings of these people?
• What is the evidence that programs like yours have had impact in the past, in terms of helping people to get better jobs than they could have held otherwise? (Specifically, seek randomized controlled trials or other attempts to address the possible "selection bias" that people who make it through, or even enroll in, the program may be more motivated to begin with.)
• How much has been spent on this program? How many people have completed the program?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people served, and up to what point?

• What are the rules and regulations of your shelter?
  • Can anyone stay there who wants to?
  • Is there a curfew? If so, are you concerned that this may interfere with people's job options?
  • How many nights is someone allowed to stay?
  • How do you handle times where demand exceeds supply? First-come first-served or another system?
• Have you surveyed users of the homeless shelter to see their satisfaction level and suggestions for improvement?
• What are the conditions of the shelter (cleanliness, functional utilities)?
• How do you provide security? How many violent incidents have you had in the last year and how have you responded?
• What services do you provide other than shelter?
• What is the "local homeless population" served by your shelter and what is your "penetration rate" among them? To the extent that there are homeless people not using your shelter, have you attempted to determine why not?
• Have you collected any information about the longer-term outcomes for people who use your shelter?
• How much has been spent on the program? How many person-nights of shelter have been provided?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people served by your shelter(s), and up to what point?

• Where do you get the food that you provide/deliver?
• Do you supplement in-kind donations with cash-purchased food? What percentage of your food do you purchase?
• What is your process for checking the quality of the food you provide/deliver? Have you done formal assessments that you can share?
• Have you surveyed the users of your food to determine:
  • What their food situation would be like in your absence?
  • What their preferences are and the extent to which you're meeting them?
• What other food sources are available to your clients?
• Have you collected any information about the longer-term outcomes for people who use your services?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people provided with food, and up to what point?

• Who is targeted? What outreach strategies are used?
• What type of benefits does the organization assist participants with accessing?
• Does the organization collect information on why participants were not accessing benefits previously?
• What percentage of participants are able to access benefits? What are the reasons that participants who attempt to access benefits are not able to access them?
• Does the organization conduct surveys of participants' satisfaction with the program? What have past surveys shown?
• How much has been spent on the program? How many people have been assisted with accessing public benefits?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people assisted with accessing public benefits, and up to what point?

• What populations do you target? Do you have more eligible applicants than you can accommodate? If so, how do you determine who is included?
• What are the requirements for enrolling in your program? Are there any fees?
• What is taught? Do participants demonstrate increased knowledge of taught concepts following the program? Do they change their behavior to reflect what they have been taught?
• Have you collected any systematic data on participant satisfaction / retention? How happy are participants with the program? What do they wish were improved? How often do they drop out and for what reasons do they drop out?
• To what extent do you stay in touch with participants? Have you systematically collected (and can you share the reports on) information regarding whether participants reduce their debt and/or increase their savings over time, lead more financially stable lives, and/or reach their financial goals?
• How much has been spent? How may people have participated?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people served, and up to what point?

• Who provides assistance? What are their qualifications?
• Who is eligible for assistance?
• Do you collect information on what sort of assistance is provided and how cases were resolved, aggregated by broad category? Can you share it?
• How would your budget likely change if you had more revenue than expected? Less?

• Example organization: Salvation Army

Questions:

• What type of services are offered? Are they offered within prisons or for ex-prisoners outside of prisons? If they occur within prisons, how close are the participants' expected release dates?
• To what extent are prisoners or ex-prisoners followed over time? What data is available on outcomes such as re-incarceration rates, employment and income rates, social stability, and substance abuse?
• Have you done a randomized controlled trial of your program? If not, are you planning to? If not, why not?
• Have you surveyed participants to see their satisfaction level with the program and suggestions for improvement?
• How often do participants drop out of the program? Have you surveyed them to determine their reasons for dropping out?
• How much has been spent? How many prisoners/ex-prisoners have participated?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more participants in the program, and up to what point?

Prevention

Related information:

• Example organization: D.A.R.E.

Questions:

• Who are the participants? Is there evidence that they are at heightened risk for substance abuse?
• What methods are used to prevent substance abuse? Is there independent evidence that such methods are effective?
• To what extent do you stay in touch with participants? Have you systematically collected (and can you share the reports on) information on whether participants are less likely to abuse substances as a result of the program?
• Have you done a randomized controlled trial of your program? If not, are you planning to? If not, why not?
• How much has been spent on the program? How many people have participated?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more program participants, and up to what point?

Rehabilitation

Questions:

• Who is eligible to participate? Who is targeted?
• What methods are used to rehabilitate substance abusers? Is there independent evidence that such methods are effective?
• To what extent do you stay in touch with participants? Have you systematically collected (and can you share the reports on) information on whether participants return to substance abuse following the program?
• Have you done a randomized controlled trial of your program? If not, are you planning to? If not, why not?
• How much has been spent on the program? How many people have participated?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more program participants, and up to what point?

• What activities do participants engage in?
• Is there rigorous evidence that similar activities have resulted in reduced obesity in the past?
• Who runs the activities? What are their pay and qualifications?
• Who is targeted by these activities? What are the requirements for participation? In the case of over-subscription, how do you determine who gets in?
• Do you track the weight of participants during the program? After? Do you create views of progress over time, and are these available?
• Have you tried to assess the impact of your program on long-term obesity, compared to how participants would have done without the program?
• How much has been spent on the program? How many people have participated?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more participants, and up to what point?

• What percentage of your budget goes into direct benefits, i.e., costs of services and reimbursements?
• What sort of services do you provide/cover, and with what conditions attached?
• What are the requirements for someone to receive assistance? How is their financial need determined?
• Do you have more eligible candidates than you can currently fund? If so,
  • How much funding would you need to fully serve your target population?
  • How do you determine which candidates get benefits in the meantime?
• If not, how will you use additional donations?
• Do you survey the people you help to determine their satisfaction with what you provide? Can you share reports on this data?
• Do you have data on the quality of medical care that you provide and/or cover, and any associated complications and follow-ups?

• In the news: "Nonprofit Hospitals Face Scrutiny Over Practices" from the New York Times

Questions:

• Do you give free care that a for-profit hospital would not (i.e., beyond emergency-room-related obligations)?
• Do you subsidize care, i.e., provide it cheaper than a for-profit hospital would? If so, can you provide some specific examples of services that cost less at your hospital than at nearby for-profit hospitals, with price quotes from both your hospital and the for-profits?
• If you provide free care and subsidies:
  • What are the requirements for someone to qualify? What sort of proof do they need to provide? How is financial need determined?
  • How do you verify that beneficiaries meet your requirements? Do you perform audits to verify that your process is working, and are the results of these audits available?
  • What is the market value of the free care and subsidies you provide each year? How does this compare to the non-earned revenue (donations, grants) you receive each year?
• Do you have formal, comparable data available on the quality of care at your hospital - things like mortality/complication rates by condition? (And something related to hand-washing would be good too)
• What are your earned revenue (i.e., not grants or donations) and expenses over the past several years? If there is a shortfall, why is this? If there is a surplus, why are you in need of donations?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more free or subsidized care to more patients?

• Who is eligible for mental health services? Who is targeted?
• How do you select your counselors? What qualifications do they have? How are they trained and assessed?
• Is there a research base on the approach used by your counselors (i.e., on its effectiveness)?
• Do you survey patients on their satisfaction with the program? How often do clients drop out of the program? Are drop outs surveyed for reasons why they have dropped out?
• Do you follow patients over time to monitor their long-term mental health?
• How much has been spent on this program? How many people have received mental health services? What level of service have they received?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people receiving mental health services, and up to what point?

• Example organization: Ronald MacDonald House

Questions:

• What areas are targeted? Who is eligible for care?
• What type of conditions are treated? How serious are they? How are complicated cases dealt with?
• What are the qualifications of the staff?
• What other primary care services are there in the areas the mobile unit visits? Where do patients generally go for care?
• Does the organization monitor the quality of care? Does the organization follow up with patients and for how long?
• Are patients charged a fee for care? What proportion of costs are covered by fees?
• How many patients are seen per day on average? How many examination rooms are there?
• Are patients surveyed to determine their satisfaction with the care they receive?
• How much has been spent on this program? How many patients have been seen?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more patients being seen, and up to what point?

• Example organizations: Planned Parenthood, Susan G Komen for the Cure

Questions:

• What disease(s) does the organization screen for?
• How does screening work? What equipment and technical skill is needed?
• Who is targeted? How prevalent are the diseases among this population?
• What percentage of tests result in each false positives and false negatives?
• Are the diseases regularly screened for by doctors during physical exams?
  • If so, why do you believe it is necessary to conduct supplementary screening?
  • If not, is there a reason why such diseases are not screened for?
• How are results delivered? What follow up instruction or care is provided?
• Do you monitor whether its screening activities result in earlier treatment? Do you monitor whether they result in better patient outcomes?
• How much has been spent on this program? How many people have been screened? How many cases of disease have been found?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more screenings for people in the target group, and up to what point?

• Example organization: Ronald MacDonald House

Questions:

• Who is eligible for housing? Who actually accesses housing? What are their income levels? If there is more demand for housing than space available, how is it determined who receives housing?
• What type of illnesses are residents or their family members treated for? How long does treatment take?
• How does the availability and quality of care near the patient's home compare to the care they receive near the temporary housing facility?
• Is there a fee for temporary housing? What proportion of costs is covered by fees?
• Have you collected any systematic data on participant satisfaction? How happy are participants with the facility? What do they wish were improved?
• Have you tried to assess the impact of your program on health outcomes, compared to how participants would have done without the program?
• How much has been spent? How many people have received housing and for how long?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people staying in the organization's facility, and up to what point?

• Example organizations: Special Olympics, American Heart Association, Sloan-Kettering, March of Dimes

Questions:

• What messages are communicated or skills taught? How are these chosen? Is there independent evidence demonstrating that these are best practices and improve patient outcomes?
• How are messages communicated or skills taught?
• Do you monitor whether health care professionals change their behavior as a result of the program? Do you monitor whether patient outcomes improve?
• How much has been spent? How many health care professionals have received training or information?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more health care professionals receiving training or information, and up to what point?

• What percentage of your budget goes into direct benefits for people with conditions (cash, coverage of travel expenses, etc.)?
• What sort of benefits do you provide, and with what conditions attached?
• What are the requirements for someone to receive assistance? How is their financial need determined? How do you address concerns that people not in need may be taking advantage of your program?
• Do you have more eligible candidates than you can currently fund? If so:
  • How much funding would you need to fully serve your target population?
  • How do you determine which candidates get benefits in the meantime?
• If not, how will you use additional donations?
• Do you survey the people you help to determine their satisfaction with what you provide? Can you share reports on this data?

• Example organizations: Make a Wish Foundation, Toys for Tots

Questions:

• Who is eligible to participate? Are there more eligible candidates than there is funding to allow them to participate? If so, how is it determined who gets to participate?
• How is it determined what participants receive? Are participants allowed to choose what they receive?
• Do you survey participants regarding their experience with the program, especially whether it lived up to their expectations and whether it made any lasting difference in their lives?
• How much has been spent? How many people have participated?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more participants, and up to what point?

• How much of your revenue comes from fees paid (e.g., tickets, registrations) vs. donations?
• What are the requirements for participation in your program?
• Do you have more qualified and interested candidates to participate than you can currently fund? If so:
  • How much funding would you need to fully serve your target population?
  • How do you determine which candidates participate in the meantime?
• If not, what would you do with additional donations?
• Do you survey the people you help to determine their satisfaction with what you provide? Can you share reports on this data?

• What percentage of your budget goes to direct benefits? (I.e., how many dollars out of your total budget are spent directly on cash grants, debt relief, and other transfers? This is not the same as "how many dollars are spent on program expenses.")
• What are the requirements for someone to qualify for direct benefits?
  • What sort of proof do they need to provide of veteran status or other relevant status?
  • How is their financial need determined?
• How do you verify that beneficiaries meet your requirements? Do you perform audits to verify that your process is working, and are the results of these audits available?
• What is the value of benefits awarded, per-individual and per-year? How is the size of benefits determined?
• Are any conditions attached to benefits? If so, what is the reasoning behind these conditions and how do you enforce them?
• Do you have more eligible candidates than you can currently fund? If so:
  • How much funding would you need to fully serve your target population?
  • How do you determine which candidates get benefits in the meantime?
• If not, how will you use additional donations?

• What are your other programs? How much do you spend on each?
• Which programs would likely be expanded with additional revenue?
• What is the target population?
• What evidence is available that these programs are promising ways of helping your target population?
• How do you track your performance? How do you know whether you're succeeding or failing? Are any relevant performance reports available and can you share them?
• How much additional funding could each program productively absorb?

Education programs

Questions:

• What knowledge are you trying to spread?
• Among what target population are you trying to spread it?
• Do you have evidence that spreading this knowledge can be expected to lead to fewer instances of abuse? Can you share it?
• What evidence have you collected about the impact of your activities on knowledge?
  • If you conduct classes, do you assess people's knowledge not only before and after the class, but well afterward?
  • If you conduct public education campaigns, do you sample and track changes in knowledge?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people reached with educational messages, and up to what point?

Counseling programs

Questions:

• Who is eligible for counseling? Who is targeted?
• How do you select your counselors? What qualifications do they have? How are they trained and assessed?
• Is there a research base on the approach used by your counselors (i.e., on its effectiveness)?
• Do you collect any aggregated data on the exchanges between counselors and counseled, i.e., what problems people report and what advice counselors provide them? Can this information be shared?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people receiving counseling, and up to what point?

Shelters

Questions:

• What are the rules and regulations of your shelter?
• Can anyone stay there who wants to?
• Is there a curfew? If so, are you concerned that this may interfere with people's job options?
• How many nights is someone allowed to stay?
• How do you handle times where demand exceeds supply of space? First-come first-served or another system?
• Have you surveyed users of the shelter to see their satisfaction level and suggestions for improvement?
• What are the conditions of the shelter (cleanliness, functional utilities)?
• How do you provide security? How many violent incidents have you had in the last year and how have you responded?
• What services do you provide other than shelter?
• What is the size of the target population of your shelter and what is your "penetration rate" among them? To the extent that there are battered women people not using your shelter, have you attempted to determine why not?
• Have you collected any information about the longer-term outcomes for people who use your shelter?
• How much has been spent on this program? How many person-days of shelter have been provided?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more women provided with shelter, and up to what point?

Legal assistance

Questions:

• Who provides assistance? What are their qualifications?
• Who is eligible for assistance? If there are more eligible candidates than can currently be served by the program, how do you determine who receives assistance?
• Do you collect information on what sort of assistance is provided, by broad category? Can you share it?
• Have you surveyed those who have received assistance to see their satisfaction level with the assistance they received and suggestions for improvement?
• How much has been spent on this program? How many people have received legal assistance?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people receiving legal assistance, and up to what point?

• Example organization: Habitat for Humanity

Questions:

• Do you systematically survey the alternatives to what you're building, before you build it? Can you share reports from these surveys?
• How do you assess the needs of the people you're serving - to what extent they need assistance and to what extent the infrastructure you're building is what they most want? Can you share these assessments?
• How do you audit the quality of what you build, both immediately and over the long term? For how long do you generally follow up? Can you share output from these audits?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more projects similar to the ones you've completed in the past, and up to what point?

Education programs

Questions:

• What knowledge are you trying to spread?
• Among what target population are you trying to spread it?
• Do you have evidence that spreading this knowledge can be expected to lead to fewer suicides? Can you share it?
• What evidence have you collected about the impact of your activities on knowledge?
  • If you conduct classes, do you assess people's knowledge not only before and after the class, but well afterward?
  • If you conduct public education campaigns, do you sample and track changes in knowledge?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people reached with educational messages, and up to what point?

Counseling programs

Questions:

• Who is eligible for counseling? Who is targeted?
• How do you select your counselors? What qualifications do they have? How are they trained and assessed?
• Is there a research base on the approach used by your counselors (i.e., on its effectiveness)?
• Do you collect any aggregated data on the exchanges between counselors and counseled, i.e., what problems people report and what advice counselors provide them? Can this information be shared?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more people served, and up to what point?

Websites

Questions:

• To whom is the information on your website available? If there are restrictions, why?
• Can you provide data on:
  • Monthly unique visitors?
  • Avg time on site?
  • Number of active users?
• How do people primarily use your website?
• Do you gauge people's satisfaction with the experience you provide and what they'd like to see changed/added? Can your reports on this be shared?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less?

Hotlines

Questions:

• How do you select your counselors? What qualifications do they have? How are they trained and assessed?
• Is there a research base on the approach used by your counselors (i.e., on its effectiveness)?
• To whom are your hotlines available?
• How many calls do you receive per month? How many calls are lost due to insufficient phone capacity?
• Do you collect any aggregated data on the exchanges between counselors and counseled, i.e., what problems people report and what advice counselors provide them? Can this information be shared?
• How would your activities change if you had more revenue than expected? Less? Would more revenue translate directly into more calls answered, and up to what point?

• Can you provide statistics on how many people access your services per year and what they pay (if anything)?
• Do you follow up with users of your information to see whether (a) their issues are resolved (b) they end up going to other sources for information? Can you share this info?
• What other sources of information are available on similar topics? How do you differ?
• How would your budget likely change if you had more revenue than expected? Less?

• Example organizations: Salvation Army

Questions:

• Do you have statistics on (a) how many people attempt to use your services per year, and how much they pay (if anything); (b) how many of these result in successful reunions?
• How much has been spent on this program?
• How would your budget likely change if you had more revenue than expected? Less?