The Board claims that its Benchmarks reports have had a substantial
impact on popular and legislative debates. The state legislature has maintained
continued support for the Board. The exercise has also attracted extensive
attention outside the state. The Corporation for Enterprise Development, a
national nonprofit organization that promotes strategies for economic and
social development, credited Benchmarks as a successful attempt to build
methods of accountability that did not “simply count the number of program
inputs”(Oregon Progress Board 1998). The Ford Foundation’s Innovations in
American Government program gave the exercise an award for innovation in
1994, and the National Governors’Association has encouraged other states to
begin similar performance-monitoring exercises. Benchmarks,Vice President
Gore said in 1996, was “the wave of the future” (National Performance Review
1996, 57).