Staying at the forefront since 1989.

In 1989, Jane Reisman decided that instead of continuing to pursue a career in academia, she would follow her passion:  putting sociological research to practical purposes in the community.  She thus started Organizational Research Services as a consulting business.

In 1996, the United Way of America hired Jane as one of six national trainers, as they sought to train all local United Ways and their nonprofit partners in outcomes-based evaluation.  For a number of years, Jane and ORS stayed at the forefront of the social sector movement away from activities and outputs to meaningful measurement and use of outcomes data to guide work and report back to key stakeholders.

That wasn't the first-or last-time that ORS would be at a new edge of the evaluation field.  In 2004, through support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, ORS helped develop a new framework for thinking about systems-level changes (Impact, Influence, Leverage and Learning) and advocacy and policy change outcomes and evaluation.

In 2009, Sarah Stachowiak joined Jane as a co-owner in the business, after joining the company as a consultant in 2003.  In 2012, Sarah became CEO and the owner of the company, seeking to nurture and grow the company that Jane skillfully built and led over nearly 25 years.

Today Jane continues her work on the cutting edges of the social sector as an Impact Advisor, guiding the creation of measurement and evaluation systems that facilitate strategic learning and lead to better decisions and actions, designing theories of change that become roadmaps for high impact and serves as a thought partner to promote innovative approaches to better address the complex, volatile, and tenacious threats and inequities that characterize our modern world.

Today, Sarah leads the company with the support of Marshall Brumer, Vice President, Carlyn Orians, Director of Evaluation, Paula Rowland, Director of Culture and Learning, her entire Senior Team of Senior Consultants and Directors, as well as her Board of Directors.  She is proud to continue the traditions and values that Jane created the company upon, including sharing back freely what we have learned and developed to colleagues and the field and continuing to find and push upon the edges of our field in ways that keep measurement and evaluation approaches, relevant, meaningful and useful.