Hunter Consulting LLC

Founder and Consultant:  David E. K. Hunter, Ph.D. 

David Hunter's practice builds on three decades of experience, in both the Public and the Social Sectors, using performance management systems to improve the quality and effectiveness of social services.  As the Superintendent (CEO) of a State Psychiatric Hospital in Connecticut, his efforts led to improved hospital safety and lower patient length of stay while attaining measurable, good treatment outcomes.  Subsequently, while working in philanthropy and then in his own consulting practice, he developed and has continued to refine a new approach to working with nonprofit organizations, funders (both private and public), and government programs using Theory of Change and Performance Management Workshops to improve strategic performance management.  

David is the author of numerous articles and has  papers about strategic performance management and how to create, invest in, and sustain social value in complex situations with diverse stakeholders.  A selection of his articles and public presentations are available for download in the Library on this page.  This brochure describes his approach to theory of change workshops.

Click here for an example of a Theory of Change Report (Blueprint for Success) that a nonprofit will develop through these workshops.  It is presented here by permission of Summer Search, a national youth development organization offering a very creative program for inner city youths.

A RARE BLOG APPEARANCE BY DAVID HUNTER

CHARITY NAVIGATOR is trying to bring reasonable metrics into the social sector so that funders will have better information on which to base theIr grantmaking or investment decisions.  So far it has only considered financial performance metrics, but has announced plans to expand its measurement framework to include a consideration of OUTCOMES.  I recently responded to some questions about outcomes and related matters on the Ken Berger's blog (Ken is the President of Charity Navigator).  If this topic is of interest to you, click here.

Library

-Leap of Reason (a groundbreaking volume by Mario Morino, to which I contributed a paper on "Using a Theory of Change Approach to Helping Nonprofits Manage to Outcomes")

~The End of Charity (an article recently published in the new, web based Phiadelphia Social Innovations Journal, in which David discusses why philanthropy needs to move from charity to social investing)

-A Means to Assess Social Investment Risk (a follow- up to "The End of Charity" published in the Philadelpia Social Innovations Journal)

`Strategic Performance Management Workshops:  A Brochure (a description of David's approach to Theory of Change Workshops and strategic performance management)

~Capacity-Building Theory of Change Workshops (a description of the process that David follows in helping organizations develop and implement  strategic performance mangement systems)

~Yes We Can!  A call for and exploration of performance management in the nonprofit sector 

David Hunter is a founding member of the Working Group for Effective Social Investing.  As part of this group, he co-authored, with Steve Butz, the White Paper A Guide to Effective Social Investing. The paper identifies an approach to assessing the level of risk that a social investor is taking on when trying to create social value by supporting nonprofit social service agencies. 

~Daniel and the Rhinoceros (on the value of performance manage-ment data and the uses and abuses of experimental evaluation methods for nonprofit organizations)

~Active Service Slots (presentation of a useful measure of effective program cpacity in social services)

~Drowning in Data: Performance Managment, a Rock and a Hard Place (a discussion of how lack of a clear theory of change results in a "shotgun" approach to data collection that ultimately benefits nobody and hurts the agencies so engaged)

~Bald Tires and Social Value (an argument in favor of budgeting resources to assess whether one's agency's efforts acually are helping anybody)

~Schematic Table:  From Charity to High Return Social Investing (a bluperint for effective funding)

~A tool to assess how well your organizaton has implemented program performance managment