Our impact
What donor support has produced, and how we hold ourselves to it.
Impact by the numbers
What donor support has built so far.
Beyond the countable outcomes, participants report the things that actually change a life: leaving a night shift, moving into a better neighborhood, and being the first person in their family to work in a professional technical role.
How we measure success
We track four things, because they are the four things that indicate someone’s situation has changed:
- Job placements. Participants moving into paid technical roles.
- Certifications earned. Independently verified, industry-recognized credentials.
- Higher education completed. Degrees and formal qualifications finished after CCA.
- Better living conditions. Participants leaving night shifts, raising their income and moving into better housing.
The system we built records participant progress and asset use, so when a funder asks what a specific gift produced, we can answer from records rather than anecdotes. Reports to funders use aggregate figures, such as the share of participants who earned a certification in a year, and never identify individual participants.
How each outcome is recorded
An outcome is only worth reporting if you know how it was counted. This is how we record each of the four.
- Job placements
- Each new job and each promotion is recorded as its own event, with the date. Where a participant shares their pay, we record that too, so we can tell whether a move was a step up.
- Certifications
- Recorded with the issuer, the date earned and the expiry date, plus a link to verify the certification wherever the issuer provides one. We also note whether CCA paid for the exam.
- Higher education
- Degrees and other formal qualifications are recorded when they are completed.
- Living conditions
- Changes in pay are recorded over time. Changes such as leaving a night shift or moving home come from what participants tell us, and we describe them that way.
The support behind the outcomes
We also record the support CCA gives each participant:
- equipment lent, and every shipment in both directions
- courses started and completed
- certification exams CCA paid for
- staff time, such as resume reviews, interview coaching and help finding benefits, recorded in hours
A report to a funder can then show what support participants received as well as what changed for them. Restricted gifts are reported against the program or cost they paid for.
Who we reach
When people enroll, we ask a few optional questions: their highest level of education, whether they were the first in their family to go to college, how many technical certifications they already hold, and their postal code. The answers show us who CCA is reaching. Nobody has to answer them to take part.
More people want in than we can currently fund
Applications are outrunning the equipment, hosting and mentor time we have. Every gift raises the number of people we can take this year.