Earlier this month, we started rolling out Mozilla Foundation’s new strategy. The core goal is to make the health of the open internet a mainstream issue globally. We’re going to do three things to make this happen: shape the agenda; connect leaders; and rally citizens. I provided an overview of this strategy in another post back in December.

As we start rolling out this strategy, one of our first priorities is figuring out how to measure both the strength and the impact of our new programs. A team across the Foundation has spent the past month developing an initial plan for this kind of measurement. We’ve posted a summary of the plan in slides (here) and the full plan (here).

Preparing this plan not only helped us get clear on the program qualities and impact we want to have, it also helped us come with a crisper way to describe our strategy. Here is a high level summary of what we came up with:

1. Shape the agenda

Impact goal: our top priority issues are mainstream issues globally (e.g. privacy).
Measures: citations of Mozilla / MLN members, public opinion

2. Rally citizens

Strength goal: rally 10s of millions of people to take action and change how they — and their friends — use the web.
Measures: # of active advocates, list size

Impact goal: people make better, more conscious choices. Companies and governments react with better products and laws.
Measures: per campaign evaluation, e.g. educational impact or did we defeat bad law?

3. Connect leaders

Strength goal: build a cohesive, world class network of people who care about the open internet.
Measures: network strength; includes alignment, connectivity, reach and size

Impact goal: network members shape + spread the open internet agenda.
Measures: participation in agenda-setting, citations, influence evaluation

Last week, we walked through this plan with the Mozilla Foundation board. What we found: it turns out that looking at metrics is a great way to get people talking about the intersection of high level goals and practical tactics. E.g. we need to be thinking about tools other than email as we grow our advocacy work outside of Europe and North America.

If you’re involved in our community or just following along with our plans, I encourage you to open up the slides and talk them through with some other people. My bet is they will get you thinking in new and creative ways about the work we have ahead of us. If they do, I’d love to hear thoughts and suggestions. Comments, as always, welcome on this post and by email.