Measuring Outcomes and The Charitable ChallengeComments
In the last blog post I wrote about the issues that arise when funders or donors evaluate a nonprofit solely based on the indirect costs to program costs ratio. Last Friday, Rick Wartzman (the executive director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University), published a relevant article in Businessweek. Wartzman’s article, The Charitable Challenge, emphasizes the ongoing need for donors to go further than just looking at this ratio when considering which nonprofit to support. Wartzman cites several interesting resources, and gives a list from Give Smart (a guide for philanthropists) of questions that donors should engage to evaluate their relationships with nonprofits that they support. The fourth question, “What will it take to get the job done?” is the central theme of the article. This brings up an important point that I didn’t address in my last post, mainly, that nonprofits should employ measurement internally to assess the outcomes of their programs and campaigns, and to develop plans for future endeavors based on this knowledge. For smaller nonprofits, this might mean feeling comfortable with financial statements, and using them to access current and historic trends to get a handle on the organization’s financial position and health. For larger nonprofits, this could be strategic and scenario planning, or connecting with other successful or innovative organizations in the field for perspective and communication. Since our clients range from volunteer-based organizations to organizations with $5 million operational budgets, look forward to a blog on tools to access your financial position, and a tutorial on reading and analyzing financial statements. In the meantime, here’s a link to Wartzman’s article: The Charitable Challenge. Read MoreNobody's commented on this post yet. |
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