If you are a nonprofit executive, you are certainly familiar with the idea of a “strategic plan.” A group of board members get together, sometimes for a day or a weekend, to chart out a plan for the ...

A couple of weeks ago, Scioto Analysis published a cost-benefit analysis of data center policies in Ohio. We found that data ...

While I was still in school, I worked as a guide on wilderness expeditions. As part of that job, I was a certified Wilderness First Responder. In that training there is a mantra about working from ...

Earlier this week, I attended the Minnesota Evaluation Association ’s annual conference. In the morning, I had a conversation with a few other attendees about some of the challenges of performing quan ...

One of the most important questions we have to answer when we are proposing a project to a client is “how long will it take?” This one question has major implications for project costs, it can inform ...

Often, governments, nonprofits, foundations, and associations have budgets to answer important questions but don’t know exactly what kind of study they need to answer them. I use $40,000 as an example ...

In a survey released this morning by Scioto Analysis, 16 of 31 economists agreed that a vehicle-miles-traveled fee would be a more efficient way to fund Ohio's roads than the motor-fuel tax. Earlier ...

We live in a post-welfare reform world. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich worked together to reform welfare in the United States. A large part of the bargain struck ...

On Wednesday, I went to a luncheon hosted by the Columbus Metropolitan Club on the topic of homelessness. The host posed a question to one of the panelists: what would it cost to end homelessness in ...

From this table, you can get an idea of which states rely the most on federal funding. For instance, let’s consider Alaska. Between national parks, conservation land, and military bases, 60% of Alaska ...

When an analyst approaches a problem and are trying to take an efficiency lens to it, she has two main options at her fingertips: cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis. Understanding ...