Costs and Consequences¹⁵ in the Context of Needs Assessment

An important bonus for using “need” as a noun is that you may derive a reasonable set of indicators for return on investment; estimating what you give and what you get. This is very useful, for you will be likely (if not now, soon) required to justify everything you use, spend, and deliver on the basis of the costs to you and the consequences of what you deliver.

It is difficult to take into account all of the possible costs and the various kinds of consequences, but you can estimate them closely enough to justify what you use, do, produce, and deliver, and to track your costs and returns.

Using an indicator of Mega level consequences.¹⁶ As noted earlier in Chapter 3, an estimate of the societal impact—Mega level consequences—is that an individual’s consumption be equal to or less than his or her production:

C ≤ P

where C is consumption as indicated by dollars/money expended by an individual and P is production as indicated by dollars/money obtained by an individual.

This indicator is an approximation of Mega level consequences and payoffs, and it is based on a shorthand definition of Mega level results that no person will be under the care, custody, or control of another person, agency, or substance as indicated by C ≤ P.

Among the questions that a costs-consequences initiative should answer are:

1.   Who are the participants in the interventions? Who should be?

2.   Who are being turned down for the interventions? Who should be?

3.   What interventions are the participants receiving? What alternative interventions might they receive?

4.   What are the results of the intervention or interventions (at the Mega, Macro, and Micro levels)?

5.   What are the completion, drop-out, and continuation rates for the participants?

6.   What are the performance levels of the completers? What value do they add? What about those who do not complete?

7.   What is the societal condition—their levels of self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and quality of life—of the completers? The non-completers? What are the levels of completer's and non-completer's self-sufficiency and self-reliance (in terms, at least, of C ≤ P)?

8.   What interventions and patterns of interventions are making the best contributions in terms of societal (Mega) pay-offs and consequences? What is working and what is not? What are the valid criteria for these?

9.   What are the societal (Mega) payoffs and consequences for the various interventions for the various kinds of participants (in terms, at least of C ≤ P)?

10.   What are the costs for the payoffs and non-payoffs, and is it worth the expenditures as compared to other interventions that might be made?

11.   Have the decisions made not generalized past the completeness and quality of the data?