The goal of community development should be to improve the lives of as many disadvantaged people as possible with a minimum amount of resources. The field can achieve this goal by identifying those community development projects that are both efficient and have significant social impacts, and...

Enormous progress is being made in the design of metrics to assess the consequences of social interventions. But four considerations could still usefully be given greater salience in the design of social impact measurement systems. In the first place, it is important to recognize that metrics...

Measuring nonfinancial returns is a cost of doing business for community development financial institutions (CDFIs). Like any other expense, the tracking and reporting of impact must be justified by the contribution it makes to CDFI operational and strategic priorities.

As this essay contends, it is not only possible, but essential, to capture the beneficiary voice, the views of informed community stakeholders, and the observed physical changes that are occurring on the ground. These results can be obtained in conjunction with other critical measures rather...

The banking crisis has laid bare something that is often hard to quantify: the social value from homeownership that accrues to people and their communities. The unaccounted-for facets of value to buyers that are inherent in goods have too often been stripped out of those goods by financial...