The Washington Post reports that a group of philanthropists and entrepreneurs are working to develop a rating system to evaluate how nonprofits spend their money and whether their work is making a difference. The Working Group on Effective Social Investing is working to create the Social Investing Rating Tool, "to encourage donors to think more like investors -- to consider their charitable donations social investments, complete with risks and responsibilities." On the Working Group's website, four objectives are listed:

• Establish a set of indicators to gauge the ability of a social service organization to create social value - that is, achieve lasting results and continuously improve performance.
• Develop an assessment that can be used to determine how organizations rate in relation to established indicators.
• Build donor awareness of the questions they should ask to understand the level of responsibility they must assume for their investment to generate social value.
• Establish a process for managing the ongoing improvement of indicators and the related assessment.

It will be interesting to find out how the group will define what it means to create social good. In addition, as a separate recent Washington Post article describes; "Donors receive more bang for their charitable buck by supporting nonprofits that both provide direct services and advocate for larger policy reform." If the Social Investing Rating Tool includes advocacy, ultimately the missions of social service organizations would be better served. It is the consistent combination of providing services and strong advocacy that will help solve systemic problems. For example, the Alliance for Children and Families has the New Voices at the Civic Table program "to provide clients with opportunities to use their authentic voices to improve the conditions of life for their families and neighborhoods." The toolkit for nonprofit board members and volunteers is also very informative; it addresses the focus on "mission-based advocacy, the process by which organizations harness the political potential of all the individuals [. . .] committed to the organization's mission to, in concert, take actions that can lead to more effectively achieve or advance the organization's goals. This effort gives salience to the concept of civic participation, an essential value of our democratic society."