Using a Scorecard to Assess Your Network's Health: Case Example
March 2010
Here’s a case example of how members of one network used our Network Health Scorecard to track and improve their network’s effectiveness.
When the 14 organizations in the Southwest Rural Policy Network met in November 2010 to discuss how well their network was doing, they didn’t just share their latest impressions. They had data stretching back nearly a year and a half. Since June 2009, as part of their formal work plan, they had self-assessed the network five times using a Network Health Scorecard. The assessment covered four essential categories: the network’s purpose, performance, operations, and capacity. The process only takes a few minutes after the network’s quarterly meeting—but reveals a great deal about how network members judge the network.
In November, Joyce Hospodar, the network member who chairs the network’s evaluation committee, summarized the scores—on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being low/5 being high—for the past five quarters: Purpose scores were holding steady. Performance scores peaked the previous spring. Operations and Capacity hovered around 4.0, but dipped recently.
Interestingly, when network members also scored where they thought the network’s health was compared to a year earlier, the ratings were all substantially higher than at the outset.
The scorecard is a tool, one source of evaluative feedback a network can use to gauge how well it’s doing and what sort of improvements might be useful. “Note,” says network coordinator Mikki Anaya, “this assessment only measures one aspect of the SWRPN’s effectiveness—the capacity/organizational efforts of the network.” A different evaluation will look at the network’s policy advocacy activities.
The one we developed has a total of 22 questions divided into the four categories. Several networks have adapted the questions to better reflect the specifics of their network. But in any case, the evaluative process is the same:
Identify key indicators of the network’s well-being
Regularly collect data from the members
Analyze the data and share it with members
Determine what changes are needed
Kudos to the members of the SW Rural Policy Network for picking up on this tool and incorporating its use into their network practice.