AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 1

Best Practices in Performance Measure Design:

AmeriCorps State and National Grants

October 2022

Welcome to this webinar on Best Practices in Performance Measure Design for AmeriCorps State and 

National Grants. I’m Sarah Foster, the Program Impact Specialist for AmeriCorps State and National, 

also known as ASN, and I’ll be leading today’s session. I want to thank you all for attending this session 

and your interest in ASN’s funding opportunities. 
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 2

Session Outline

Performance measurement definition and purpose

AmeriCorps State and National performance measure requirements

AmeriCorps State and National Performance Measure Instructions

Best practices

Designing an example project grant measure

AmeriCorps State and National Planning Grant Performance Measure Instructions

Designing an example planning grant measure

Resources

Questions

In this presentation I’ll start with the definition and purpose of performance measurement, then talk 

specifically about ASN’s performance measure requirements and the set of Performance Measure 

Instructions that accompany each Notice of Funding Opportunity. We’ll talk about best practices in 

designing performance measures, then walk through an example of how to design a high-quality 

performance measure for a sample program model and a walk through of the planning grant 

performance measures. Finally, we’ll end with performance measurement resources available to all 

AmeriCorps State and National applicants.

There’s a lot to cover in this hour, and we should have time for questions at the end of the presentation. 

Please feel free to type questions using the Q&A feature as we go along so we can address them at the 

end of the session. 
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 3

Performance Measurement

Ongoing, systematic process of tracking your project outputs and outcomes

Outputs: Amount of service provided 

(number of people/organizations/other entities served)

Outcomes: Changes or benefits that occur

• Can be changes in individuals, organizations, communities, or the environment

• Typically include changes in knowledge, attitude, behavior, or condition

• Must have a logical connection to the service activities and be aligned with outputs

- Let’s start with a brief overview of performance measurement just to make sure we’re all on the 

same page

- Performance measurement is the ongoing and systematic process of tracking outputs and outcomes 

for your program

- Outputs = amount of service provided; what exactly that means depends on your program design. 

For many ASN grantees, the outputs are likely to be the number of people served by the program; 

however, for some programs it could be other types of counts, such as the number of acres of land 

treated by AmeriCorps members, or the number of organizations served.

- Outcomes = changes or benefits that occur in your program as a logical consequence to the 

intervention, or service activities, taking place. Again, for many ASN grantees, these will be changes 

that are directly related to people; however, they could also be changes in organizations, in the 

broader community, or in the environment.

- Outcomes can generally be classified as changes in knowledge, attitude, behavior, or condition. 

Outcomes should be logically connected to your program’s service activities, and they also should be 

aligned with your outputs. So if your output counts the number of people served by the program, the

outcome should reflect a change in those same people’s knowledge, attitudes, behavior, or condition 

in life.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 4

Purpose of Performance Measurement

Recognition of progress

• Collect reliable information about the intervention’s implementation and progress 

toward outcomes

Accountability to funders and stakeholders

• Communicate achievements in a meaningful and objective way

Program improvement

• Spot and correct problems 

• Strengthen the intervention

• Determine where to allocate limited resources

So what’s the point of performance measurement? There are three main purposes:

- The first is to be able to recognize whether or not progress is being made. You know what it is that 

you ultimately want your project to accomplish; performance measurement can tell you whether are 

reaching your goals, and if so, at what pace. It can also tell you whether you are implementing your 

project in the way that you planned.

- The second purpose is to provide accountability. AmeriCorps requires that you report on your 

progress to us via performance measures, but you may also have other funders and stakeholders that 

also request this type of information. Performance measurement is an objective and meaningful 

strategy for communicating achievements to your stakeholders in a way that makes sense to them.

- The third purpose is program improvement. Performance measurement provides benchmarks that 

tell you whether or not you are meeting your goals, and if not, may also give you insights to help you 

figure out where your interventions could be strengthened to reach those goals more effectively. It 

can also help you figure out how to allocate personnel and funds in the most helpful way, especially 

in an environment where resources are limited.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 5

How AmeriCorps Uses Performance Measures

Tell the story of the collective accomplishments of national service programs

National Performance Measures

• Provide shared language for outputs and outcomes that multiple programs have in 

common

• Cover all AmeriCorps focus areas

Applicant-Determined Measures

• Intended for programs whose interventions, outputs, or outcomes do not fit under 

existing National Performance Measures

From AmeriCorps’ perspective, performance measure data helps us to tell the story of the collective 

accomplishments of AmeriCorps members and other national service programs across the country.

We do that primarily through our set of National Performance Measures, which we call NPMs, which 

allow us communicate about outputs and outcomes that many programs have in common. There are a 

set of NPMs for six AmeriCorps focus areas – Education, Healthy Futures, Economic Opportunity, 

Veterans and Military Families, Disaster Services, and Environmental Stewardship – and also a set of 

NPMs for Capacity Building activities. 

AmeriCorps State and National expects grantees to select National Performance Measures if their 

program design is consistent with these measures. However, we recognize that there are some 

AmeriCorps projects and program models for which National Performance Measures don’t quite fit. As a 

result, AmeriCorps State and National grantees also have the option to create what we call applicantdetermined measures, either as output-outcome pairs or as outcomes for existing national outputs.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 6

AmeriCorps State and National

Performance Measure Requirements

At least one aligned performance measure (output paired with outcome) connected to 

primary intervention 

• Must focus on community impact

• May be National Performance Measure or applicant-determined measure

• Additional performance measures, including output-only National Performance 

Measures, are permitted but not required

Performance measures reflect significant activities in applicant’s Theory of Change

• No need to capture all program activity in performance measures

Here are the baseline performance measure requirements for AmeriCorps State and National applicants. 

Those of you who have applied for ASN grants in the past will notice that these requirements have been 

consistent for a number of years.

AmeriCorps applications are required to have at least one aligned performance measure (meaning that 

there is an output paired with an outcome) connected to the primary intervention

It is up to you as the applicant to define your primary intervention; there is no set number of member 

service years or members that have to be associated with it. The decision about what is “primary” 

should be based on your Theory of Change as described in your application narrative and logic model. 

However, the intervention that you define as primary needs to be a community-focused intervention 

rather than a member-focused intervention, since member-focused performance measures are not 

permitted.

Your required aligned performance measure can be either a National Performance Measure or an 

applicant-determined performance measure. Applicants are not required to use National PMs, and they 

don’t get “extra credit” for doing so. However, we do expect applicants to use NPMs if they are a good 

fit for the program’s Theory of Change (this means the chain of logic between the community need, 

program activities, and expected outputs and outcomes). Applicants are not allowed to create applicantdetermined measures that duplicate NPMs.

Applicants are welcome to have more than just the single required performance measure. However, we 

only want applicants to propose outputs and outcomes that capture significant program activities. 

Again, there is no set definition of “significant,” so applicants can use their own judgment about what 

counts as significant in their context. However, generally speaking, the quality of performance measures 
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

is more important than the quantity. Just like there is no extra credit for using NPMs, there is also no 

extra credit for having lots and lots of measures. AmeriCorps State and National applicants are NOT 

required to capture all of their program activity in performance measures.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 7

AmeriCorps State and National 

Performance Measure Instructions

Summarize performance measure requirements for ASN program grants or planning grants, 

including list of allowable measures

Show selection rules and instructions for each National Performance Measure

Include helpful appendices:

• MSYs and member allocations tutorial (Appendix A)

• Performance Measure Checklist (Appendix B)

• FAQs (Appendix C)

PM Instructions are located on the Notice of Funding Opportunity page

• FY 2023 AmeriCorps State and National Grants: https://americorps.gov/fundingopportunity/fy-2023-americorps-state-national-grants

• FY 2023 AmeriCorps State and National Native Nation Grants: 

https://americorps.gov/funding-opportunity/fy-2023-americorps-state-national-nativenations-grants

The Performance Measure Instructions are a fundamental guidance documents, just like the Notice of 

Funding Opportunity (NOFO), Mandatory Supplemental Information, and Application Instructions. You 

should refer to the Performance Measure Instructions whenever you are creating or editing 

performance measures for your application. 

The PM Instructions provide an overview of the performance measurement requirements for ASN 

grants – either program grants (which are grants that enroll AmeriCorps members) or planning grants. 

The PM Instructions also lay out the selection rules – in other words, which NPM outputs can be paired 

with which outcomes, and which objectives and service activities (or interventions) are connected to 

each measure. Detailed instructions are also provided for how to use each individual output and 

outcome measure.

There are three appendices that you can use as resources when developing performance measures:

- Appendix A has a tutorial about how to assign member service years (MSYs) and member positions 

(called slots) to objectives and performance measures within the application;

- Appendix B has a checklist that you can use to self-assess your performance measures and fix 

common problems before submitting your application to AmeriCorps. It is not intended to be 

completely comprehensive or catch every potential issue, but it will help you be responsive to the PM 

requirements.

- Appendix C has a set of frequently asked questions and answers about performance measures

PM Instructions are located on the Notice of Funding Opportunity page
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 8

AmeriCorps State and National 

Performance Measure Instructions

8

Since there may be people from all of our current available funding opportunities on this call, I want to 

emphasize for you to be sure that you are looking at the Performance Measure Instructions associated 

with the Funding Opportunity you’re applying to. The Public Health AmeriCorps PM Instructions are 

different than the ASN and Native Nation PM Instructions because PHA applicants may only select PMs 

in the Healthy Futures and Capacity Building focus areas. Planning Grant PM Instructions are also 

different from the PM Instructions for grants that have members.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 9

Performance Measure Instructions: Recent Changes

9

Simplified the National Performance Measure matrix by reducing the number and 

complexity of measures

Made National Performance Measures more inclusive and reduced barriers to use

Provided National Performance Measure outcome options in all focus areas

Focused performance measures exclusively on community impact

• Key member-focused outputs and outcomes are reported via optional performance 

data elements

**All applicants must follow the current Performance Measure Instructions**

If you applied for AmeriCorps funding in 2019, you may remember that the National Performance 

Measure matrix changed significantly that year. This slide summarizes the primary changes that were 

first made in 2019 and that continue today. All new, recompeting, and continuation applicants are 

required to follow these updated Performance Measure instructions.

One important feature in the current PM Instructions is that AmeriCorps State and National 

performance measures must focus on community impact, not the impact of the program on AmeriCorps 

members themselves. This is NOT because AmeriCorps doesn’t value member outputs and outcomes. In 

fact, just the opposite! AmeriCorps expects all grantees to create meaningful member experiences and 

to provide valuable training and support that will lead to positive member outcomes both during and 

after their service. For that reason, AmeriCorps State and National wants all grantees to be able to 

report on member outputs and outcomes, not just grantees that opt into particular performance 

measures. Starting in 2019, a set of optional performance data elements, formerly known as 

demographic indicators, became available to all grantees to report member-focused outputs and 

outcomes on their Project Progress Reports. Data on member impacts are also collected across all 

programs via the Member Exit Survey.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 10

Best Practices: Performance Measure Design

• Select performance measures that fit your program design and theory of change, not 

vice versa

• Read the instructions

• Less = more: limit performance measures to significant program activities

• Select measures that complement existing Performance Data Elements

• Use National Performance Measures when they fit the program design

• Use system-defined intervention categories when possible (but other interventions are 

allowable)

I’d like to run through a few best practices from AmeriCorps’ perspective for performance measure 

design. This list was developed by a team of AmeriCorps program staff and is based on common issues 

we see in the hundreds of performance measures we review each year.

Select PMs that fit your program design and theory of change, not vice versa

• Start with your own vision for what your program will do and what you hope to accomplish, and 

don’t select your PMs until after you have fully developed your Theory of Change and logic model. 

DON’T try to artificially fit your program model into a particular performance measure just because 

you want to use that measure. A performance measure is not going to be helpful for your program if 

it doesn’t effectively capture what you actually intend to do.

Read the instructions

• As I mentioned before, the Performance Measure Instructions are a fundamental guidance document 

for preparing an application. Before you choose a National Performance Measure, it is important that 

you read the instructions for that measure very closely and that you follow all of the requirements 

specified in the Performance Measure Instructions.

Less = more; limit performance measures to significant program activities

• Remember that you are only required to have one performance measure connected to your primary 

intervention. You are welcome to select additional performance measures, including output-only 

measures, if they make sense for your program design. However, if an activity will not be a 

significant one in terms of time or effort on the part of your AmeriCorps members, we encourage you 

not to create a performance measure for it. You can – and should! - plan to collect and monitor data 

on those activities for your own programmatic purposes, but you do not need to report the data to 

AmeriCorps as a performance measure.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Select PMs that complement existing Performance Data Elements

• As I mentioned earlier, all ASN grantees are asked to report on a set of standard Performance Data 

Elements in their annual progress reports. These data elements are listed in the end-of-year progress 

report instructions posted on the AmeriCorps website, and grantees are required to report on all of 

the ones that are relevant to your program model. Because you already have to report on those 

indicators, it’s a good idea to choose performance measures that will complement that reporting and 

provide an additional value-add. For example, if your program provides job training or placement 

services, you will already be required to report as a Performance Data Element the number of 

individuals you serve. So it might make sense to create a performance measure that will use this 

output and adds a relevant outcome measure: for example, the number of beneficiaries who actually 

secure employment. Or you could create a performance measure that is completely different from 

the Performance Data Elements, like the number of organizations that receive capacity-building 

services and improve their volunteer management capacity. You probably DON’T want to create a 

performance measure that simply duplicates the available Performance Data Elements and adds 

nothing extra, like an output-only measure that counts the number of individuals served during 

disasters.

Use national performance measures when they fit the program design

• As I mentioned earlier, you should use national performance measures in any case where your 

program design and measurement strategy fits these measures. AmeriCorps does NOT want you to 

create applicant-determined measures that duplicate or are very similar to existing national 

measures. We also don’t want you to type national measure codes and definitions into an applicantdetermined measure field in the Performance Measure Module. If you can’t find a particular national 

performance measure in the PMM screens, it probably means that you need to go back and select a 

different objective on an earlier tab. The first few pages of the PM Instructions show you which 

measures are located under each objective. 

Use system-defined intervention categories when possible

• The Performance Measure Instructions list particular interventions, or service activities, for each 

performance measure. If one or more of those interventions match the activities you will be doing, 

please select these system-defined interventions. You should only type in your own interventions if 

none of the existing interventions is a good fit for your service activities. If you are currently using an 

intervention category that is not listed in the PM Instructions, please switch to using a new systemdefined intervention if you can.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 11

Best Practices: Performance Measure Design

• Clearly define terms and ensure they are meaningful

• Clearly distinguish outcomes from outputs while maintaining logical alignment

• Choose outcome measures that are ambitious but realistic

• For outcomes that require participant follow-up, set targets that take into 

account response rate attrition

• Use pre-post assessments when possible

• Use numerical targets, not percentages

Clearly define terms and ensure they are meaningful

• It’s helpful to specify the meaning of important words and phrases you include in your performance 

measures, such as “improvement”. Otherwise, we don’t know whether terms like “increased health 

knowledge” or “improved health” mean a tiny change or a large one. It’s also helpful to explain why 

the level of change that you will be measuring is meaningful to the program beneficiaries; that will 

help you use performance measures to tell your story effectively.

Clearly distinguish outcomes from outputs while maintaining logical alignment

• This is a mistake that is most commonly made with applicant-determined outcomes. You need to 

make sure that your outcome doesn’t just count participation in a program or re-state the output 

measure, but reflects an actual change in knowledge, attitude, behavior, or condition. For example, 

if the output is the number of individuals participating in a program, the outcome can’t be the 

number of individuals who completed the program; this is not a change in knowledge, attitude, 

behavior or condition. Instead, the outcome could be the number of individuals who showed 

improved knowledge of program content, or the number of individuals taking specific actions as a 

result of participating in the program.

Choose outcome measures that are ambitious but realistic

• We want you to reach for the moon in setting your long-term goals for the program, and we want 

you to include those long-term goals in your logic model. However, you don’t need to report on your 

long-term goals as part of your performance measures; you can measure short- or medium-term 

goals that are attainable in a single grant year but reflect important steps toward your ultimate goals. 

For example, if your ultimate goal is for children to grow up to be healthy adults, you don’t need to 

(and can’t) measure that in a single year; instead, you could measure the number of children that 

have increased their level of physical activity as a result of participating in a member-led program. 
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

This is a meaningful change in behavior that is appropriately ambitious and is a logical step toward 

developing healthier adults, but is also measurable in a single year.

For outcomes that require participant follow-up, set targets that take into account response rate 

attrition

- Many outcomes require post-surveys, tests, or some other type of participant follow-up to determine 

changes in knowledge, attitude, behavior, or condition. Unfortunately, it’s rarely possible to get 

100% of program participants to respond to those surveys or follow-up requests. We also don’t want 

you to extrapolate your results unless you have an approved sampling plan (in other words, if you get 

a 50% response rate to your post-survey, you can’t just double the numbers to simulate a 100% 

response rate.) As a result, it’s wise to set your outcome targets somewhat lower than your output 

targets to account for less than 100% response rates. However, you should also make it a goal to 

achieve the highest response rates possible.

Use pre-post assessments when possible

- Objective measures generally yield better data than subjective measures. If we ask you at the end of 

today’s webinar whether you feel like you know more about AmeriCorps performance measurement 

than you did at the beginning of the webinar, chances are that you will say yes (at least, I hope so!). 

But if we gave you a pre- and post-assessment that actually measured your knowledge about 

performance measurement before and after the webinar, it may or may not show the increase in 

knowledge that you believed took place. People’s own perceptions of change are frequently different 

than the actual change itself.

Use numerical targets, not percentages

- This allows us to add up numbers across all of our programs; percentages are not add-able
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 12

Best Practices: Performance Measure Design 

• Select data collection instruments that are valid (measure what they are supposed 

to measure) and yield consistent and accurate results

• Choose data collection instruments that are accessible and yield timely data

• Allocate sufficient resources toward data collection efforts: money, time, 

personnel, training, storage

Select data collection instruments that are valid (as in they measure what they are supposed to 

measure) and yield consistent and accurate results

- Performance measure actuals are not meaningful unless you can say with confidence that they mean 

what they are supposed to mean, and that the meaning does not fluctuate across different sites or 

across different time periods. To be able to make good decisions about a program, you need to have 

good data, and good data comes from high-quality data collection instruments.

- So, for example, consider selecting an instrument that has been tested by an independent third party 

and has been proven to measure the particular type of change you are interested in measuring. Or 

pilot-test the instrument yourself and check the quality of the data you receive before you decide to 

start using that instrument for your whole program.

Choose data collection instruments that are accessible and yield timely data

- If you rely on an instrument – for example, patient health records – where there are privacy laws or 

other barriers to accessing the data, you may have difficulty getting performance measure results 

and/or using them to make informed decisions about your program. You might consider looking for 

alternative instruments where the data are more accessible and there is a quicker turnaround time.

Allocate sufficient resources toward data collection efforts, which include money, time, personnel, 

training, and storage

- Data collection is a significant investment, certainly in terms of dollars, but also in terms of staff time 

and member time. You will want to build those dollar and time investments up-front into your 

budget, staffing, and program design. Performance measurement will not be done effectively if it 

becomes an unexpected “add-on” to someone’s already full schedule, or if your staff or members 

don’t receive adequate training on how to do it. You also need to be planning for how you will store 
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

source documentation for your outputs and outcomes (sign-in sheets, completed surveys, etc.) and 

retain it as grant records.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 13

Designing a Measure

The HealthyCorps Program is requesting six halftime AmeriCorps members to lead small-group 

health education programs for elementary 

students at area community centers. The primary 

short-term goal of the program is to improve 

children’s understanding of healthy eating habits, 

with the longer-term goal of improved health 

during their teen years. 

Each AmeriCorps member will meet with different 

groups of 5-8 children after school each day for 

about 30 minutes each over a period of 8 months, 

using a nutrition education curriculum developed 

by a consortium of state and local public health 

agencies. Members will also recruit volunteers to 

help community centers expand health-focused 

physical activities in their afterschool programs.

Let’s transition to an example of how an AmeriCorps applicant would go about selecting and designing a 

performance measure. Here is a brief summary of a hypothetical program called HealthyCorps. 

The HealthyCorps Program is requesting six half-time AmeriCorps members to lead small-group health 

education programs for elementary students at area community centers. The primary short-term goal of 

the program is to improve children’s understanding of healthy eating habits, with the longer-term goal 

of improved health during their teen years. 

Each AmeriCorps member will meet with different groups of 5-8 children after school each day for about 

30 minutes each over a period of 8 months, using a nutrition education curriculum developed by a 

consortium of state and local public health agencies. Members will also recruit volunteers to help 

community centers expand health-focused physical activities in their afterschool programs.

I’ll also drop this program description in the chat so you can refer to it later if you’d like to.

[Text to drop into chat]:

The HealthyCorps Program is requesting six half-time AmeriCorps members to lead small-group health 

education programs for elementary students at area community centers. The primary short-term goal of 

the program is to improve children’s understanding of healthy eating habits, with the longer-term goal 

of improved health during their teen years. 

Each AmeriCorps member will meet with different groups of 5-8 children after school each day for about 

30 minutes each over a period of 8 months, using a nutrition education curriculum developed by a 

consortium of state and local public health agencies. Members will also recruit volunteers to help 

community centers expand health-focused physical activities in their afterschool programs.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 14

Step 1: Identify Service Activity/ies

The HealthyCorps Program is requesting six halftime AmeriCorps members to lead small-group 

health education programs for elementary 

students at area community centers. The primary 

short-term goal of the program is to improve 

children’s understanding of healthy eating habits, 

with the longer-term goal of improved health 

during their teen years. 

Each AmeriCorps member will meet with different 

groups of 5-8 children after school each day for 

about 30 minutes each over a period of 8 months, 

using a nutrition education curriculum developed 

by a consortium of state and local public health 

agencies. Members will also recruit volunteers to 

help community centers expand health-focused 

physical activities in their afterschool programs.

Primary

Secondary

Before HealthyCorps starts choosing performance measures, their first step is to zero in on what exactly 

the AmeriCorps members will be doing to help the community – in other words, what specific 

interventions, or service activities, they will be involved in.

Based on this description, HealthyCorps members will be doing two things:

- Providing nutrition education to children

- Recruiting volunteers to help community centers expand afterschool offerings

It’s up to HealthyCorps to define which of these they consider to be their “primary” service activity. 

However, since the description says that the primary short-term goal of the program is to improve 

children’s understanding of healthy eating habits, it seems logical that they would classify the nutrition 

education activities as primary. Recruiting volunteers to expand health-focused afterschool offerings 

would be considered their secondary activity.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 15

Step 2: Choose the Right Measure(s) 

and Intervention(s)

Primary service activity: 

nutrition education

This is an image from the ASN Grant and Native Nation Grant Performance Measure Instructions’ 

selection rules; PHA grantees will see different Healthy Future performance measures in their 

instructions. 

Once HealthyCorps has identified nutrition education as their primary intervention, they will start, as all 

applicants should start, by meeting their baseline performance measure requirement: one aligned 

measure (output + outcome) connected to this primary service activity. 

Nutrition education fits under AmeriCorps’ “Access to Care” and “Obesity & Food” objectives in the 

Healthy Futures focus area. Since their intervention could apply to either of these objectives, it is up to 

the grantee to decide which fits best. Since the intervention is not specifically tied to obesity but instead 

access to nutrition education, HealthyCorps will create its required performance measure under the 

“Access to Care” objective.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 16

Step 2: Choose the Right Measure(s) 

and Intervention(s) (Continued)

16

Secondary service 

activity: volunteer 

recruitment to expand 

health-focused 

afterschool 

programming

AmeriCorps applicants can also select additional performance measures for secondary service activities, 

which for HealthyCorps includes recruiting volunteers to expand health-focused physical activities in 

afterschool programs. HealthyCorps’ secondary activity falls under the Capacity Building and Leverage 

objective in the Capacity Building focus area. However, it’s not necessary for HealthyCorps to create a 

performance measure for this. In fact, HealthyCorps should NOT create additional performance 

measures unless the activities they capture are a substantial part of the applicant’s Theory of Change 

and proposed member service. 

In our example, HealthyCorps decides to stick with just the single required performance measure 

connected to their primary service activity, nutrition education. 
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 17

Step 2: Choose the Right Measure(s) 

and Intervention(s) (continued)

As you can see in the Selection Rules column, there are four possible outcome measures under the 

Access to Care objective. We need to pick the measure that best fits HealthyCorps’ Theory of Change 

for their primary service activity.

According to the program description, HealthyCorps’ primary short-term goal is to improve children’s 

understanding of healthy eating habits. This is the outcome they should try to measure. The program 

also has the longer-term goal of improving health during the teen years, but because they are serving 

elementary-age kids, this longer-term outcome wouldn’t be measurable within a single program year. So 

outcome measure H17, the number of individuals with increased health knowledge, is the most logical 

outcome measure for this program design. 

According to the selection rules, the required output measure for outcome H17 is H4A, the number of 

individuals served. Thus, the aligned performance measure that HealthyCorps will create should consist 

of output H4A plus outcome H17.

As I also mentioned earlier, applicants should select from the list of system-defined interventions 

whenever possible. Since Education and Training is included in the pre-defined list, HealthyCorps should 

select this intervention as the primary service activity connected to their aligned performance measure.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 18

Step 3: Study the Instructions for Each Measure

Read the Performance Measure Instructions for each measure to make sure the 

program can meet the requirements

Once HealthyCorps has tentatively selected their National Performance Measure outputs and outcomes, 

it’s important for them to read the Performance Measure Instructions carefully for each measure. They 

need to make sure the measures they’ve selected truly are the right fit, and that their program design 

will allow them to meet the requirements for each measure in terms of eligibility (who or what can be 

counted under the measure) as well as data collection (appropriate instruments to collect data).

For output measure H4A, the instructions are very inclusive: this measure can count any recipients of 

AmeriCorps-supported services related to improving health-related outcomes. The only caveat is that 

the services provided to those individuals must be significant – in other words, a substantive 

engagement with a specific health-related goal in mind. HealthyCorps can’t just count the number of 

people on their email distribution list or the number of kids who pick up an informational leaflet about 

nutrition. And the output also needs to be an unduplicated count. So if the same child attends five 

sessions of HealthyCorps’ health education program, that child shouldn’t be counted five separate 

times.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 19

Step 3: Study the Instructions for Each Measure 

(continued)

Applicants that cannot meet the requirements for a measure should not use it

For outcome measure H17, the Performance Measure instructions say that only individuals reported 

under the output measure H4A can be counted (you can disregard the other measure codes listed here, 

because they aren’t relevant to the Healthy Futures outcome; they’re related to Veterans and Military 

Families outputs). This means HealthyCorps can’t report more children under the outcome than they do 

under the output.

The instructions also provide guidance about appropriate instruments for collecting data under this 

outcome. We’ll talk more about instruments on a later slide. The most important note in this section is 

that the instrument needs to be able to measure changes in knowledge at the individual beneficiary 

level. Group-level or generalized assessments won’t meet this requirement. Also, pre-post assessments 

should be used when possible to get the most objective measure of change.

If HealthyCorps’ program design won’t allow them to meet the requirements for outcome H17, they 

shouldn’t use it. They should select a different option from the list of available AmeriCorps outcome 

measures.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 20

Step 4: Define All Terms Clearly

HealthyCorps definition of “substantive engagement”: attending at least 4 health 

education sessions (equivalent to 1 month of participation)

You’ll notice that the instructions for H4A don’t fully define “substantive engagement” other than saying 

what is it not. And the instructions for H17 don’t define “increased health knowledge”. It is up to 

HealthyCorps to decide what terms like “substantive engagement” and “increased knowledge” should 

look like in the context of their own program design. “Substantive engagement” may be different for a 

child vs. an adult, and increased knowledge will look different depending on whether it is knowledge 

about nutrition or knowledge about how to prevent the spread of disease. 

Because performance measures are about telling a program’s story effectively, it is to HealthyCorps’ 

advantage to spell out the details of what these terms mean and why the definitions are meaningful for 

the children they propose to serve. If it is not clear that what is being counted in a performance 

measure is significant, AmeriCorps may ask HealthyCorps to revise or delete the measure.

This slide shows HealthyCorps’ definition of “substantive engagement” for the output measure. They are 

defining it as attending at least 4 health education sessions, which is equivalent to 1 month of 

participation. So if a child shows up for just one 30-minute session and then never comes back, they 

won’t be counted as being served, because it’s unlikely that they would have been able to benefit much 

from that brief level of participation.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 21

Step 4: Define All Terms Clearly (continued)

HealthyCorps definition of “increased health knowledge”: At 10% or greater 

increase in a child’s ability to identify healthy food choices.

This slide shows HealthyCorps’ definition of “increased health knowledge“ for the outcome measure. It 

specifies that they will be measuring knowledge about healthy food choices, and that the increase has to 

be at least 10%. We’ll get to more details in a later step about exactly how the program proposes to 

measure this change.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 22

Step 5: Calculate MSY and Member Allocations

Determine how many members, and what portion of members’ time (MSYs), will be 

devoted to:

A) Each focus area and objective

B) The specific activities captured by the performance measure*

Members can be counted toward more than one focus area/objective/activity; 

MSYs cannot

*Not all member activities need to be captured under performance measures

The next step for HealthyCorps is to quantify how they will be allocating their member resources. They 

need to calculate the number of members and the amount of each member’s time that will be devoted 

to each focus area and objective in their proposed project. From there, they can figure out the sub-set 

of members and member time that will contribute to the specific activities captured by the performance 

measure. 

Member time is measured in Member Service Years, or MSYs; one MSY is the equivalent of a full-time 

term of service. Individual members can participate in more than one type of service activity, so 

members themselves can be counted more than once. However, MSYs, which are a measure of the 

time they spend on each activity, cannot be double-counted.

It’s important to remember that not all AmeriCorps member activities need to be captured under 

performance measures. There is no required percentage of an applicant’s MSYs and members that must 

be allocated to performance measures; this will depend on the applicant’s program design.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 23

Step 5: Calculate MSY and Member Allocations 

(continued)

HealthyCorps MSY and member allocations: 6 half-time members, 3.0 MSYs

A) Each focus area and objective

B) The specific activities captured by the performance measure

Members MSYs

Healthy Futures focus area, Access to Care 

objective (nutrition education)

6 2

Capacity Building focus area, Capacity Building 

and Leverage objective (volunteer recruitment)

6 1

Members MSYs

Nutrition Education 6 2

HealthyCorps’ program description states that they will be enrolling 6 half-time members. Since each 

half-time member position equals 0.5 MSYs, the program has 3.0 MSYs total. As we saw on a previous 

slide, the service activities for HealthyCorps AmeriCorps members fall into two focus areas and 

objectives. Nutrition Education, the program’s primary service activity, is in the Healthy Futures focus 

area under the Access to Care objective. Volunteer recruitment, the program’s secondary service 

activity, is in the Capacity Building focus area under the Capacity Building and Leverage objective. 

The program description indicates that all AmeriCorps members are participating in both activities, so all 

6 members are counted twice, once for each activity. Calculating MSYs is a bit more complicated. 

Healthy Corps estimates that about 2/3 of member time is spent on nutrition education while the other 

1/3 is spent on capacity building. So 2 out of the 3 total MSYs are allocated to Healthy Futures while the 

other 1 MSY is allocated to Capacity Building. These values sum up to 3, meaning that no MSYs are 

double-counted.

Once HealthyCorps has figured this out, they can calculate how many MSYs and members should be 

allocated to the specific activities captured by the performance measure. Nutrition education is the only 

activity the AmeriCorps members are doing in the Healthy Futures focus area, so HealthyCorps assigns 

all of their Healthy Futures MSYs and members to the performance measure. Since they didn’t create a 

performance measure for their capacity building activity, the remaining 1 MSY won’t be assigned to a 

performance measure.

You may still have questions about this, and that’s okay! You can learn more about MSY and Member 

Allocations in Appendix A of the PM Instructions.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 24

Step 6: Set Output and Outcome Targets

Ambitious but realistic estimate of what can be accomplished in 1 program year

Outcome targets should relate logically to output targets

HealthyCorps targets:

• Output H4A: 150 students

• Outcome H17: 90 students

The next step in performance measure development is to set output and outcome targets. These should 

reflect a realistic but ambitious estimate of what the members who are contributing to the performance 

measure can accomplish in a single program year. The targets should also be logically related to each 

other; for example, in most cases, the target for the outcome should not exceed the output target.

In the case of HealthyCorps, the applicant estimates that six half-time members devoting a collective 2 

MSYs to small-group health education programs over 8 months can collectively work with a total of 150 

children, so this is the target for output measure H4A. Of the 150 children who participate in the 

program, HealthyCorps projects that 90 of them will meet the definition of increased health knowledge. 

This represents 60% of the students who participate; however, the outcome target needs to be stated as 

a number, not a percentage.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 25

Step 7: Select Appropriate Instruments

Must meet criteria specified in the Performance Measure Instructions

• Output

• Outcome

Must meet fundamental data quality standards

• Valid

• Accurate

• Consistent

• Complete

• Verifiable

The next step for HealthyCorps is to choose instruments to measure their output and outcome. The 

performance measure instructions provide quite a bit of flexibility in the types of instruments that can 

be used. However, as we talked about earlier, the selected instruments have to meet the criteria in the 

instructions: the output instrument must ensure an unduplicated count of individuals who receive 

services, and the outcome instrument must be able to measure changes in knowledge at the individual 

beneficiary level. 

Applicants are responsible for selecting high-quality data collection instruments that produce valid, 

accurate, consistent, complete, and verifiable data. The Notice of Funding Opportunity spells out 

required data quality standards that programs have to meet. To help with validity, AmeriCorps 

encourages programs to use pre-post assessments for outcomes whenever possible. Data collection 

instruments should also be crafted by subject-matter experts and should be field-tested ahead of time 

to make sure they are effective.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 26

Step 7: Select Appropriate Instruments (continued)

HealthyCorps output instrument:

• Sign-in sheets for each nutrition education session that capture each participant’s 

first and last name. Data from sign-in sheets will be transferred to Excel 

spreadsheets to track each individual child and the number of times they 

attended sessions.

HealthyCorps outcome instrument:

• Pre-post test with 20 multiple-choice questions asking children to select the 

healthiest food choices. This assessment was developed by the public health 

agency consortium to align with their nutrition education curriculum, and has 

been previously tested in five states. Children will take the pre-test during the first 

session, and the post-test will be given after 8 months or when the child leaves the 

program, whichever is sooner.

Here are the instruments that HealthyCorps intends to use:

The output instrument: Sign-in sheets for each nutrition education session that capture each 

participant’s first and last name. Data from sign-in sheets will be transferred to Excel spreadsheets to 

track each individual child and the number of times they attended sessions.

And for the outcome instrument: Pre-post test with 20 multiple-choice questions asking children to 

select the healthiest food choices. This assessment was developed by the public health agency 

consortium to align with their nutrition education curriculum, and has been previously tested in five 

states. Children will take the pre-test during the first session, and the post-test will be given after 8 

months or when the child leaves the program, whichever is sooner.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 27

Step 8: Put it All Together

• Use eGrants

Performance Measure 

Module

• Application Instructions 

explain how to enter 

information

The final step is for HealthyCorps to use the eGrants Performance Measure Module to put together the 

outputs and outcomes they have chosen, the interventions they have selected, the MSYs and members 

they have allocated, and the instruments they have selected to create their performance measure. The 

AmeriCorps State and National Application Instructions walk you through how to enter all of that 

information in eGrants, but we will walk through it quickly here as well. Let’s step into the role of 

HealthyCorps, and have you pretend that you are a program staff member charged with entering 

HealthyCorps’ performance measure in your grant application.

If you haven’t yet begun your grant application in eGrants, this is what the application interface looks 

like. There are multiple orange links on the left-hand side of the screen that correspond to each section 

of your application.

Find the section labeled “Performance Measures” on the left hand menu and click on it. Then click on 

the link that says “Click here to enter Performance Measures.”
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 28

Step 8: Put it All Together (continued)

Click the “Begin” button to add a new performance measure

This opens up the Performance Measure Module screen. You will start on the Home page, where you 

click the blue “Begin” button to add your performance measure.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 29

Step 8: Put it All Together (continued)

Locate the 

focus area 

and objective 

connected to 

your primary 

service 

activity

The button takes you to the Objective tab, where you will select all of the focus areas and objectives for 

your program and then select the service activities connected to each one. You’ll start with your primary 

service activity, which fits under the Healthy Futures focus area in the Access to Care objective. Click the 

arrow next to Healthy Futures to see the list of available objectives.
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 30

Step 8: Put it All Together (continued)

Check the 

box next to 

the 

intervention 

that matches 

your primary 

service 

activity

Find the system-defined intervention label that matches your primary service activity, and check the box 

in front of it. If you don’t see one that is a good fit, select “Other.”
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 31

Step 8: Put it All Together (continued)

Locate and 

select any 

secondary 

intervention(s)

Then you do the same thing for any secondary service activities. HealthyCorps has an additional 

intervention in the Capacity Building focus area under the Capacity Building & Leverage objective, 

focused on recruiting volunteers. The system-defined intervention “Volunteer Management” is the best 

fit here. 
AmeriCorps State and National Best Practices in Performance Measure Design 10.25.22

Slide 32

Step 8: Put it All Together (continued)

Assign your primary and secondary focus areas and interventions, then click “Next”

At the bottom of the tab, you need to indicate your primary focus area and your primary service activity. 

You can also label your secondary focus area and intervention, though this isn’t required. Once you have 

finished these steps, click the “Next” button.

A helpful tip: be sure to save your work frequently! The eGrants application screens sometimes time you 

out without warning. The “Save” button is located at the bottom left-hand side of the screen.