Impact at ARYSE

by | Oct 19, 2014 | Client Success Stories

In 2013 and 2014, the Alliance for Refugee Youth Support and Education used the Education & Human Development Impact Suite to get the data and feedback the organization’s leaders needed to develop programs, build partnerships, and serve ARYSE member organizations.

ARYSE was an America Learns Excellence Fund grantee.  The Excellence Fund is a special source of money that is awarded to high-potential start-up organizations so that their leaders can harness the Impact Suite’s power.

Several days ago, we received the following e-mail from one of ARYSE’s co-founders, Julia Schuster.  The e-mail provides a glimpse of how some organizations use the Impact Suite to advance their impact.

We wish ARYSE’s co-founders the best as they continue their careers, and hope that funders out there will respond favorably to the clear data that ARYSE has amassed during the past year.

For now, I do want to share with you why I found America Learns so essential to ARYSE's development and Tara and my development as leaders of the start-up. We were able to develop metrics and collect data important to our organization from the beginning. This allowed us to look more objectively at the real impact of the work we were doing, instead of making decisions based on assumptions or misplaced optimism. As a tool, it quickly disseminated an approach of reflection throughout the member groups, and, the individuals who were in leadership positions. Those students were exposed to the fact that targeted and quick evaluations can yield meaningful take-aways. From there, those results can be factored in to new approaches for the leaders and the organizations. The process of evaluation can be reflective, incremental, and consistent, and then, over time, steer the organizations closer to their goals.