Vision Outreach International
Top Health Nonprofit
Impact: $100 cures one person of blindness. Read More
Cataract Surgery Program meets the benchmark for high cost-effectiveness. The nonprofit averts a disability-adjusted life year for less than the country's G.D.P. per capita.
Note: The impact of this program may not be representative of the entire operation of Vision Outreach International.
Governance:
Passes checks
Mission
Vision outreach sends short-term surgical mission teams to remote parts of the world to perform sight-restoring cataract surgery. These surgical teams take their surgical equipment and supplies with them, allowing them to perform a suture-less, manual technique for cataract extraction in areas where such surgery is not otherwise available. In all of its undertakings, vision outreach seeks to follow Jesus Christ's example: "Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes (Matthew 20:34)."
Cause
Health
Rated Program
Cataract Surgery Program
Program Geography
Central America and the Caribbean
Donations processed by the nonprofit.
Cause
Health
Rated Program
Cataract Surgery Program
Program Geography
Central America and the Caribbean
Rated Program
Program
Cataract Surgery Program
Activities
Vision Outreach International performs cataract surgeries to cure beneficiaries of preventable blindness.
Program Type
Cataract Surgery
Beneficiaries Served
People living in poverty
People with disabilities
Geography
Central America and the Caribbean
Outcomes: Changes in people's lives. They can be caused by a nonprofit.
Costs: The money spent by nonprofits and their partners and beneficiaries.
Impact: The cost to achieve an outcome.
Cost-effectiveness: A judgment as to whether the cost was "worth" the outcome.
Outcomes
Outcome Metric
A person cured of blindness
To calculate impact, we estimate how many outcomes the nonprofit caused.
Data Source
Output data collected during the program. Vision Outreach International publicly reports data on how many surgeries it performs, which we use to calculate how many people it cures of blindness.
Time Period of Data
Jan. 1, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2016
Ratings are based on data the nonprofit itself collects on its work. We use the most recent year with sufficient data. Typically, this data allows us to calculate direct changes in participants' lives, such as increased income.
Method for Attributing Outcomes
We estimate the number of people the nonprofit cured of blindness by comparing the number of people whose blindness was actually cured to the number of people whose blindness would have been cured even in the absence of the nonprofit (the "counterfactual"). Some people might have had access to cataract surgery from other providers; these counterfactual successes must be netted out of the success we observe. Otherwise, we would be attributing a change (being cured of blindness) to the nonprofit when it would have happened anyway. Few nonprofits estimate the counterfactual themselves, so we construct our own counterfactual estimate based on research and publicly available data — namely, the percentage of the population with existing access to cataract surgery and the percentage of the population with existing access to essential health services.
We don't know if the observed changes were caused by the nonprofit's program or something else happening at the same time (e.g. a participant got a raise). To determine causation, we take the outcomes we observe and subtract an estimate of the outcomes that would have happened even without the program (i.e. counterfactual outcomes).
Cost
Data Source
Cost data reported by Vision Outreach International and data and assumptions about partner and beneficiary costs.
Cost Calculation
$45,941 program costs + partner costs + beneficiary costs = $45,941 total costs
After estimating the program's outcomes, we need to determine how much it cost to achieve those outcomes. All monetary costs are counted, whether they are borne by a nonprofit service deliverer or by the nonprofit’s public and private partners. In-kind donations, of labor or supplies, are not counted.
Impact
Impact Calculation
$45,941 total costs / 535 people cured of blindness = roughly $100 cures one person of blindness.
Numbers may not divide precisely due to rounding and time discounting.
We calculate impact, defined as the change in outcomes attributable to a program divided by the cost to achieve those outcomes.
Rating
Benchmark for Rating
Impact ratings of cataract surgery programs are based on the cost of a disability-adjusted life year (DALY) averted relative to the G.D.P. per capita of the country in which the program operates. Programs receive 5 stars if they avert a DALY for less than than the G.D.P. per capita, and 4 stars if they avert a DALY for less than three times G.D.P. per capita. If a nonprofit reports impact but doesn't meet the benchmark for cost-effectiveness, it earns 3 stars.
Determination
The nonprofit averts a disability-adjusted life year for less than the country's G.D.P. per capita.
Why We Could Be Wrong
We welcome your suggestions for improving our methodology. Our methodology section includes explanations of how we mitigate these issues.
- The outcome could oversimplify total impact. Using “people cured of blindness” as the metric of analysis does not capture the level of health and wellbeing restored.
- There could be multiple important outcomes not captured in our analysis.
- Vision Outreach International may be spending additional money in order to serve harder-to-reach and/or particularly valuable populations.
- In the absence of better data, we assume uniform counterfactual rates for programs, at the risk of masking variation across nonprofits.
- Our estimates rely on data made public by Vision Outreach International on its website, annual reports, financial statements and Form 990s.
- We only analyze programs that meet our criteria. As a result, this report may not fully reflect the impact of Vision Outreach International.
- We do not assess what explains the nonprofit's cost-effectiveness.
We assign a rating to the nonprofit using the rubric:
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There are indications of governance or financial health issues at the nonprofit.
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After being given an opportunity, the nonprofit chose not to publish impact information.
We are not yet issuing this level of star rating.
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The rated program does not meet our benchmark for cost-effectiveness.
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The rated program is cost-effective.
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The rated program is highly cost-effective.
Nonprofit Comment
Not provided. This may be because we lacked contact information for Vision Outreach International or it chose not to comment. If you are a representative of this nonprofit, contact us to review and comment on your rating.
Before publishing, we ask every nonprofit we can to review our work, offer corrections and provide a comment.
Analysis Details
Analysis conducted by ImpactMatters and published on November 22, 2019.
An ImpactMatters analyst searched the Form 990s, annual reports, audited financials and the website of Vision Outreach International to calculate impact and rate cost-effectiveness. A second analyst conducted quality control.
We welcome corrections. If you are interested in exploring applications of ImpactMatters data, contact us at partnerships@impactmatters.org.
Governance Check
Vision Outreach International passes our governance check.
Overhead spending is reasonable (<35% of total spending)
Charity Navigator has not issued a fraud or mismanagement advisory
Vision Outreach International itself has not reported any material diversions of assets
Vision Outreach International itself has not reported any excess benefit transactions
Source: Vision Outreach International Form 990 and Charity Navigator
How We Calculate Impact
This rating is based on ImpactMatters analysis of the impact of Cataract Surgery Program relative to costs. Impact is the change in the social outcomes of people served by the program, net of the change that would have happened even without the program (the “counterfactual”); divided by cost. Learn more.
Rating is a complex exercise and we urge you to read our frequently asked questions for details of how and why we issue these ratings.
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Vision Outreach International
