Measures of Success is a practical, hands-on guide to designing, managing, and measuring the impacts of community-oriented conservation and development projects. It presents a simple, clear, logical, and yet comprehensive approach to developing and implementing effective programs, and can help conservation and development practitioners use principles of adaptive management to test assumptions about their projects and learn from the results.
The book presents a systematic approach to improving the focus, effectiveness, and efficiency of projects, with specific guidelines and advice on:
- designing a realistic conceptual framework based on local site conditions
- developing clearly defined goals, objectives, and activities
- creating a monitoring plan that can be used to assess whether goals and objectives are being met
- integrating social and biological science techniques to collect the most relevant and useful data in the most cost-effective way
- using the information obtained through the monitoring plan to modify the project and learn from the result
The text is developed in eight chapters that follow the structure of a planning process from conception to completion, with the chapters linked by four scenarios that serve as teaching case studies throughout the book. Examples from these scenarios illustrate the processes and tools discussed, and each scenario case study is presented in its entirety in an appendix to the volume. The approach has been developed and field tested by practitioners working in many different projects in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and their experience and input ensure that the guide is both practical and useful.
Measures of Success is the only work of its kind currently available, and represents an invaluable resource for field-based practitioners, project managers, and local community leaders, as well as for international NGO staff, college and university teachers and students, researchers, and government officials.
Nick Salafsky is codirector and cofounder of Foundations of Success. He works with conservation practitioners in the United States and globally to develop and define practical measures of conservation success and identify conservation strategies that work. Previously he was a senior program officer/scientist for BSP's Biodiversity Conservation Network, a USAID-funded consortium of World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and World Resources Institute.
Richard Margoluis is Chief Measurement, Evaluation, and Learning Officer at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, where he works closely with the board of trustees and grantmaking teams to advance the organization's work in science, environmental conservation, patient care, and in the California Bay Area region. Before coming to the Moore Foundation, he was cofounder and codirector of Foundations of Success, in Bethesda, Maryland, where he worked with conservation practitioners around the world to define clear measures of success for conservation projects and principles for conservation strategies.
