As serious philanthropists know, the results of philanthropic giving are often significantly less than anticipated. Philanthropic organisations have to decide whether it is more important to make donors feel good about themselves (in which case “results” are reported merely in terms of inputs such as amounts disbursed and number of people “helped”) or to maximise the achievement of their mission (in which case it is necessary to do the hard work of measuring and evaluating the actual outcomes such as the net benefit or detriment of a program to a poor community). The book The Robin Hood Rules for Smart Giving by Michael Weinstein and Ralph Bradburd describes one technique for valuing and comparing the relative effectiveness of different types of philanthropic endeavours.
My full review of the book can be found on my business website.