Overview

Related Affordable (RA) is one of the largest preservationists of affordable housing in the country, with the core belief that everyone deserves a quality home. The Related Affordable Foundation (RAF) was created in 2016 with the mission to expand this critical work to more people, seeking to enrich the lives of affordable housing residents and the larger community.

RAF’s breadth of work spans across food security, education, workforce development, and health and wellness. But, even with the experience of working with a range of organizations, RAF still faced a familiar challenge: credible impact data to inform performance.

When it came to impact reporting, each nonprofit partner brought its own approach, metrics, and reporting style. Some organizations tracked outputs such as meals delivered, while others captured only stories or attendance. RAF wanted to know: Are our investments creating the outcomes we think they are? Is RAF funding the right things? Are we actually helping the needs of the community?

Those questions were difficult to answer.

Recognizing the need for stronger internal alignment and more transparent relationships with their nonprofit partners, RAF, partnered with True Impact. Together, they launched a standardized, outcomes‑focused measurement process – one that strengthened trust, elevated nonprofit capacity, and gave RAF the confidence to stand behind programmatic results from grant recipients.

1. The Situation

Before partnering with True Impact, RAF funded a diverse group of nonprofits – 17 in the first cohort alone – each using its own definitions of success. Reports came in as spreadsheets, emailed summaries, anecdotes, and sometimes not at all. Even when results looked positive, RAF struggled to compare programs across cities, categories, or funding levels, limiting leadership’s ability to tell cohesive stories and make strategic decisions.

Internally, teams across the company were accustomed to tracking their own performance through clear, standardized operational key performance indicators (KPI) and robust data systems. By contrast, RAF lacked access to similarly consistent or comparable data – making it difficult to quantify outcomes, demonstrate results, or translate community impact.

As housing needs across the nation and resident expectations grew more complex, it became evident that a more structured, consistent, and trustworthy measurement process was necessary not only to strengthen grantmaking, but also to build internal alignment and credibility.

2. The Challenge

Beyond internal expectations, RAF needed to navigate the realities of the nonprofit sector. Many nonprofit partners expressed fear that deeper reporting requirements would be used punitively or jeopardize future funding. Other grantees had limited data capacity and needed guidance on how to measure the outcomes they were already achieving.

RAF needed greater clarity: Which programs were performing strongest? Which partners needed more support? Which focus areas were delivering the greatest resident outcomes?

Without comparable metrics, these questions were difficult to answer.

RAF needed a measurement approach that:

• Created equity and transparency between funder and grantee.
• Provided standardized, comparable metrics across programs and regions.
• Built internal trust by aligning social impact data with broader business reporting.
• Supported, rather than burdened, nonprofits in their own evaluation capacity.

3. The Solution

In 2021, RAF partnered with True Impact to strengthen, standardize, and streamline its impact measurement approach. The partnership centered on capacity‑building, trusted guidance, and a fair, outcomes‑driven reporting process.

Key elements of the solution included:

• Standardized logic models for every nonprofit, integrated into True Impact’s guided reporting tool. These clarified program goals, activities, and intended outcomes while aligning metrics across partners.
• Curated outcome indicators tailored to RAF impact areas (food security, workforce development, education, and health and wellness) so partners could report in consistent and comparable ways.
• Hands‑on support and coaching from True Impact, ensuring nonprofits could complete reporting regardless of their internal capacity.
• A structured process and timeline including onboarding webinars, draft reviews, individualized feedback, and final report approval.
• Impact data communicated in a language used in day-to-day business decision-making across finance, asset management, senior leadership, and other business units.

Together, this framework replaced anecdotal reporting with clear, evidence‑based outcomes – and helped RAF improve both internal alignment and external relationships.

4. The Results

With consistent outcomes data and strong nonprofit collaboration, RAF now operates with far greater clarity, confidence, and credibility through its partnership with True Impact.

First, the organization developed a shared language across departments. With logic models and standardized indicators, resident outcomes could be articulated using the same level of rigor as business metrics. This created stronger alignment with leadership and made corporate social responsibility (CSR) results far easier to communicate. Moreover, different parts of the business now wanted to align the new data with their own internal KPIs.

Second, the team now makes more equitable, transparent funding decisions. With comparable metrics across partners, RAF can clearly understand which organizations are delivering strong outcomes, where additional support is needed, and where opportunities for expansion exist. This structure also reduced the power imbalance between funder and grantee.

Finally, impact data empowered the team to advocate for nonprofits more effectively. In some cases, True Impact’s reports highlighted that partners were delivering value above and beyond what they were funded for.

Together, these changes created a systemic, repeatable way of capturing impact. Through the True Impact reporting process, clear and consistent outcomes data now enables the team to speak confidently about results in leadership settings, strengthening internal alignment and elevating the value of RAF’s work. As a result, community engagement outcomes are better understood, more trusted, and more valuable across the organization.

5. Nonprofit Partner Benefits

One of the most significant outcomes of the partnership between RAF and True Impact is how much nonprofits have benefited from the process.

Feedback from nonprofit partners indicated that what began as a measurement requirement evolved into a meaningful capacity‑building experience for some organizations.

Nonprofits reported several benefits from the process, many of which extended far beyond the initial reporting requirement. Some organizations shared that they were able to secure additional funding by presenting the standardized True Impact reports to other foundations, corporate donors, and local government partners. These reports offered a level of clarity and credibility that nonprofits often struggled to produce on their own, helping them articulate their value in ways that resonated with multiple funders.

Nonprofit teams also used the data internally – to communicate program accomplishments more effectively, align staff around shared goals, and strengthen board reporting. For several partners, the process created a helpful structure for evaluating what was working and what needed to change, offering a clearer view of their strengths, challenges, and opportunities for deeper impact. This clarity often sparked operational improvements, from refining program design to improving volunteer coordination and resident engagement strategies.

Below are some of the ways in which RAF’s grant partners described the reporting experience:

• “This data allows us to demonstrate program effectiveness and measurable results to potential funders.”

• “Report findings directly informed the expansion of our Chicagoland Toy Drive initiative.”

• “Reporting improved onboarding workflows, communication, and strategic staffing decisions.”

By grounding reporting expectations in fairness, transparency, and individualized support, RAF helped nonprofits strengthen their internal systems and operate more strategically – ultimately increasing the positive outcomes achieved for residents.

Conclusion

RAF’s journey shows how thoughtful, outcomes‑driven measurement can build trust inside and outside an organization. By partnering with True Impact, RAF established a measurement system that is rigorous in guiding strategy, supportive in building capacity, and transparent in fostering strong relationships.

The work is continuing. With a strong measurement foundation now in place, the Community Engagement team is increasingly exploring ways to deepen and expand its use of outcomes data – both internally and across its national portfolio. Leadership has expressed growing interest in using impact reporting to inform strategic planning, enhance cross‑department collaboration, and identify opportunities to scale programs that deliver the strongest resident outcomes.

Additionally, RAF is looking toward creating multi‑year views of partner performance, refining outcome benchmarks, and exploring how impact insights can help shape future community engagement investments.

Together, these next steps signal a shift from impact reporting as a compliance task to impact reporting as a strategic and future‑driving function – one that strengthens the entire ecosystem of resident support.

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