The Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF) is the entertainment industry’s foremost resource for help and care in Southern California. MPTF provides child care, retirement care, inpatient and outpatient social services, and wellness programs to individuals who work in entertainment as well as their families, colleagues, and friends. It’s most visible service is the retirement community it has continuously operated for 84 years.

ETO Motivations

MPTF needed to move beyond counting contacts to measuring overall impact and effect on constituents’ quality of life. They also needed to specifically optimize the success and support of a critical program, the Relocation Stress Program, which helps constituents successfully transition from independent living to living in a retirement community, assisted living facility, or long-term care facility.

Success Hurdles

While MPTF staff eagerly embraced the transformation to an outcomes-based paradigm, board members needed to be sold on the value of looking beyond numbers to improved lives. Also, the subjective, “human” nature of the organization’s work made outcomes difficult to quantify.

Lessons and Achievements

After two years, MPTF has compiled enough information to demonstrate in a quantitative manner the positive impact its programs have on people’s lives, health, and quality of life. While board members and other supporters may still struggle to understand the underlying theory, the reports make the impact of programs very clear.

The Relocation Stress Program now clearly demonstrates its value. ETO Software has been leveraged to increase funding for individual programs (including the Relocation Stress Program) as well as for the organization. MPTF is now helping other organizations make the transition to an outcomes-based paradigm to better demonstrate the effectiveness of human services programs.