Using what I've learned

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:09:09 -0500

My first week was spent reading upwards of 800 pages of baseline, progress, and annual reports. The quantitative training I received as a first year public policy student had prepared me to read research that would have read like gibberish a year ago. It is rewarding to be able to engage at a level that was beyond my reach before graduate school.

My Deliverable: Building a Cost Effectiveness Evaluation Tool

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:37:46 -0500

My goal this summer will to build a cost-effectiveness evaluation tool designed to help the Economic Development Unit at CARE USA evaluate the social return on investment (SROI) of one project against another. An investment banker is presented with a dozen investment proposals, all of which promise a positive return. His job is to identify the one or two investments that will produce the greatest and/ or more reliable return. Similarly, my director wants to be able to compare the social return of current and future projects in order to identify the projects that will have the greatest social impact.

A colleague has been doing work with the Gate Foundation to establish a cost efficiency model based upon CARE’s Village Savings and Loan program. I am tasked with the challenge of building upon this model to develop a cost effectiveness model that incorporates social impact.

I will use the Strengthening the Dairy Value Chain project in Northern Bangladesh as my case study. The objective of my summer is to build the model and run the data gathered from the SDVC project. The model is to be built to be able to compare one project across time (against itself), region (similar focused projects in difference regions) and scope (dairy production vs. poultry farming).

crmuelle's blog

Using what I've learned

My Deliverable: Building a Cost Effectiveness Evaluation Tool