Nonprofit Analysis: Beyond Metrics

Sean Stannard-Stockton
Director of Investments and Partner, Ensemble Capital Management

beyond metrics One of the holy grails of nonprofit evaluation is to be able to compare nonprofits across issue areas. Concepts like “social return on investment” strive to quantify how much “good” an organization is creating, regardless of whether they are a soup kitchen or a job training program.

In recent years, the push towards using “metrics” to judge nonprofits has matured and moved beyond simplistic measures towards more holistic analysis. Groups like GiveWell, Root Cause, Philanthropedia, GreatNonprofits, and New Philanthropy Capital all strive to determine which nonprofits are best through analysis that seeks to go “beyond metrics”.

Charity Navigator, which popularized one of the most well known metrics – the overhead expense ratio – has begun a process of overhauling their evaluation approach to become far more holistic.

In my own writing about nonprofits, I’ve urged donors to focus on supporting “high performing” nonprofits. These are organization which:

·        …base their programs on research about what works
·        …actively collect information about the results of their programs
·        …systematically analyze this information
·        …adjust their activities in response to new information
·        …and have an absolute focus on producing results.

However, Holden Karnofsky of GiveWell has argued that the key to identifying the best nonprofits is to focus on identifying which ones have the best evidence that their programs work. This approach prioritizes “evidence of program impact” over “evidence of organizational performance”.

On October 5, at the Social Capital Markets conference, I’ll be hosting a live analysis of the nationally recognized nonprofit DC Central Kitchen. Representatives from Root Cause, Charity Navigator and GiveWell will be presenting their analysis of the organization alongside a presentation from DC Central Kitchen’s CEO.

Today, we want to kick start a conversation about how nonprofit analysis can move “beyond metrics”. Here are five questions to get us started.

What are the most critical elements that signal that a nonprofit is deserving of a donation?
What is the most meaningful financial information that can help a donor determine a nonprofit’s ability to sustain their organization?
What is the most meaning non-financial information that can help a donor determine a nonprofit’s ability to successful implement programs that work?
What is the most meaningful information that can help a donor determine how much of a difference a nonprofit’s programs actual make?
Since much of the information of interest to nonprofit analysts is released only on a voluntary basis by nonprofits, how should they react when some charities share substantive information, revealing weaknesses and past failures, while the vast majority share no substantive information?

Join Sean Stannard-Stockton, CEO of Tactical Philanthropy Advisors, in the conversation.

Jeff Mowatt

Redefined in terms of human benefit

Hi Sean,

As one enegaged in social purpose business I can’t respond in the context of nonprofits but do have some thoughts on the concept of SROI. For some time I’d assumed this meant "social return" for a given financial investment and admit to being rather surprised to find that it was an attempt to express in financial terms, what the consequence of a "social investment" has been.

I’d been acquainted with Peter Burgess online for some time and was very interested in what I’d read about his BMVA method for value accounting.

http://seepcommunity.com/…/the-burgess-method-for-value

From our perspective, a business rather than a nonprofit we’ve been making the point that "Profit is redefined in human terms rather than pure quantitative analyses" for some time so I’ll be very interested in what develops from dialogue with Peter.

In the same context, there’s an absolute gem in one of Muhammad Yunus’ recent video presentation where he expresses the ‘bottom line’ of social business in tyhe number of people who are removed from malnutrition by what Danone has been doing.

http://socialbusiness.socialgo.com/…/muhammad-yunus_31.html
- Sean Stannard-Stockton
  
  Redefined in terms of human benefit
  
  It seems to me Jeff, that a for-profit is a bit easier to analyze when trying to figure out if they are doing a good job. You can look at current profitability as a proxy for organizational effectiveness. But nonprofits have two separate engines to care for, the resource (revenue) engine and the impact engine. What do you think are the most critical elements for determining if a nonprofit is doing a good job?
  - Jeff Mowatt
    
    Redefined in terms of human benefit
    
    It’s a rather similar situation for us too Sean, in that we have a revenue engine albeit earned income rather than donor based and a social mission which surplus from that revenue is invested in.
    
    For me, a nonprofit is doing a good job if it can demonstrate impact which is in proportion to that revenue. In large foundations this can’t easily be seen. If I donate to any nonprofits, it’s the grass roots type of organisation where I can see how my donations is being used. As an example, one I know who are rebuilding a roof for a children’s family type home.
Rubens Turkienicz

LET US TALK WITH EACH OTHER? (AND NOT “AT EACH OTHER”)?

Dear All,

Please consider the following:

a) How about leaving behind military concepts? What the world needs is to change thanks to common people taking life in their hands – yes, a revolution that will be motivated by the COMMON GOOD and have as main objective BENEFITS FOR ALL!

b)"Common sense" is at best an oxymoron and at worst brain-washing! Do we want more slogans (or "metrics", which are likewise useless) or CONSCIOUS WORK?

c) Please get off the tall horse? Let us make sense – i.e., propose things that anybody can verify, test and eventually use by themselves (mindful approach, scientific method, clarity, transparency, ethics). Otherwise this will be a sterile "operation" (here we go again with the military/war approach… uff!) that will produce more oxymorons and much blablabla.

Thanks for listening, as I am surely listening back,

Rubens Turkienicz

rubensturkienicz(at)gmail(dot)com
- Sean Stannard-Stockton
  
  LET US TALK WITH EACH OTHER? (AND NOT “AT EACH OTHER”)?
  
  I agree that "metrics" are not the holy grail. Which is why this discussion is about moving beyond metrics. Given your views, what do you think are the most critical elements that signal whether a nonprofit is doing a good job?
Lakshmi Narayana

Social Return on Investment (SROI)

The concept is welcome and certainly helps to assess the utility of the investment made in the social development. It is the need of the hour and we all need to work for it with better sustainable and quality approaches / strategies as a problem solving one on need based approach.

NEED BASED APPROACH should be the manta for Social investment which should work as a development model against earlier concept of charity.

While doing the audit with the concept of SROI, the parameters will vary based upon the cause or the target groups. In the case of persons with disabilities in general and particularly the one with intellectual disabilities, the parameters of SROI should be based on their challenges, skills, needs and living circumstances.

Based on the cause and target group, the concept of SROI is welcome and needs to follow for the empowerment of the people under coverage which helps all of us to remove the barriers and to improve the access & connectivity so that real development can be achieved with better efficiency and quality.

N Lakshmi Narayana

grcnln@gmail.com
- Sean Stannard-Stockton
  
  Social Return on Investment (SROI)
  
  Thanks for the comment. Given your view on need based approaches, what do you think are the most critical elements that signal whether or not an organization is delivering value?
Kevin Jones

metrics that do harm

The examination needs to start with the donor. Do your metrics add to or detract from the value you want to create in the world, when they impact the people who have to fill out your forms? how are the similar from or redundant to other metrics the poor non profit has to fill out for another donor. like a physician, the donor should first ensure that it has the right metrics that enhance the mission of the designated non profit. that it is not applying a system metric to a relief intervention, eg. shari berenbach of calvert and laura callannan of mckinsey wrote a long paper on this for the first socap.

the donors applying their metrics need to first examine the power relationship assumptions underlying their metrics and their rights to intrude on the act of people doing good.
- Sean Stannard-Stockton
  
  metrics that do harm
  
  It seems to me Kevin, that in the for-profit world where you operate, investors seek out metrics but NEVER make an investment based on a metric that does not have deep value.
  
  For instance, if someone pitched you on an investment idea and only told you what the operating margin, revenue growth rate and debt levels where, you’d ask "yes, but what’s the organization do? What’s the story?" You’d want to meet the management team, understand the products and the context within which the company operated. Only then would the metrics that begin to have any relevance.
  
  In the nonprofit world, we seem to have put the cart before the horse and begun to demand metrics of nonprofits before we truly understand their story.
  - Kevin Jones
    
    metrics that do harm
    
    yeah it’s like a butler looking down his nose at you before he decides if you get into the master class’s garden party. unconscious class and power relationships seem to abound. non profits are not truly welcomed, they are tradesmen admitted to the gentry’s soirees. the scenes could still be right out of pre wwi britain, post pride and prejudice but not dislodged from that realm.
  - Kevin Jones
    
    metrics that do harm
    
    for profit investors trust their investees and give them agency in a way that non profits do not. we can not manage them; no one in an investee reports to us. we have influential power, advisory power, network power. we’ve given the money to create something of value for both of us. maybe foundations don’t really think the non profits give them something they need; they are self sufficient but the non profits are their agents to ameliorate the ills of the deserving poor? not sure.. something very different in the trust and power and agency expected by the recipient of funds.
    - Sean Stannard-Stockton
      
      metrics that do harm
      
      I think one important element to realize is that while some charitable gifts are intended to be investments in the organization, most are more like a customer buying something. The donor is paying the nonprofit to execute their program.
      
      In the for-profit world, when you buy a cup of Starbucks, you get instant feedback on whether it was a good purchase. Since in the nonprofit world you buy things on behalf of other people, who can’t personally decide if it was a good buy. That drives donors to seek indications of whether their purchase was a good one. Nonprofits respond by telling stories about their beneficiaries (which works to help satisfy their donors), but more and more donors want proof. This is what has led to the rise of metrics.
      
      But in the end I think most metrics offer a false precision.
      - Kevin Jones
        
        metrics that do harm
        
        agree totally on false precision. another form of false precision that comes to mind is the old way innuits would trap a polar bear. they would put blood on a knife, lodge the knife on a stick in the snow. bears smells blood. bear licks, likes the taste. tastes good until the last drop. the lack of accurate processing of negative feedback when you rely on a false precision often thwarts your true intentions. what could we do to introduce a beneficial element of Schumpeterian creative destruction into the foundation world?
David Lynn

Non-Isolated Metrics Can Be Useful

Great discussion!

Transparency is the most critical element. I have to be able to understand what’s going on under the hood, which means I am also inclined to support organizations that provide more information. Revealing weaknesses is the best way for me to know how I can help. If they only tell me their strengths, why do they need my money?

Financial information: increase in revenue, including diversification and donor-progression (turning small donors into large donors). Sure, we might all be lemmings, but it’s the closest you can get to assuming that something good is going on.

Non-financial information: volunteer ratios, with volunteer recitivism. More dedicated volunteers should again imply something good is going on.

Most importantly, metrics are useful, but not useful in isolation. Analyzing the metrics of one nonprofit isn’t going to get you anywhere. But analyzing comparable metrics across multiple nonprofits in a similar sector will start to see trends. For example, I can’t tell you exactly what volunteer ratio is good, but I can tell you that if one nonprofit has a far better volunteer ratio than their nearest similar nonprofits, then something likely is better there.

Thanks.

–David
- Sean Stannard-Stockton
  
  Non-Isolated Metrics Can Be Useful
  
  I think you are right to identify the role of transparency David. Transparency gives context. If, as a donor, I have a good sense of everything going on at a nonprofit, then I am more prone to discount metrics which don’t jive with the rest of the information and more likely to understand metrics when I can think of them within the context of all of the nonprofit’s work.
Erinn Andrews

Measuring Impact Across a Cause

Very interesting discussion indeed, Sean. I agree with David when he says "Most importantly, metrics are useful, but not useful in isolation. Analyzing the metrics of one nonprofit isn’t going to get you anywhere." Unfortunately, there are very few metrics that can be measured across nonprofits in the same cause, that I believe give an indication of the great work or impact a nonprofit is having. One can compare quantifiable metrics like fundraising efficiencies and overhead ratios, and perhaps things like volunteer repeat participation, but what metrics can we measure that indicate impact? It’s easy to measure the number of vaccines given or the number of houses built, but what about the metrics that cannot be measured so easily? How do we quantify the amount a nonprofit has changed the life of an individual? How do we measure the effect a theater performance has had on a 6th grader? These are equally important measures of impact, I believe.

And to come back to David’s point, I believe there is even more power in understanding the relative impact of a nonprofit compared to others in the field. However, as just one person without a ton of knowledge in a particular cause I care about, say the performing arts, how can I possibly make those comparisons myself? How much data, due diligence, and time would I have to gather and spend in order to feel good about my $100 or $1000 donation? And is it realistic that I’d really spend any time at all?

Given these constraints and limitations, one thing I believe we can do is turn to the people in the field who have access to that kind of information and have that cross-sector perspective. Sure, it’s still an imperfect measure, but short of doing high-cost, in-depth studies about the 1M+ nonprofits out there, what else can we do to compare impact across a cause?

One final point. I see value in measuring both evidence of organizational performance and evidence of program impact. The practical question I have is, which is easier to measure?
- Sean Stannard-Stockton
  
  Measuring Impact Across a Cause
  
  Erinn, While your organization can help donors source expert opinions, to what extent do you think that donors can evaluate nonprofits directly through asking them questions about how they run their organization? Is the cost benefit of this approach work at the low end of donations?
  - Erinn Andrews
    
    Measuring Impact Across a Cause
    
    I believe, in a perfect world, donors would try to learn as much as they can about the impact of the nonprofit they’re considering donating to. In some cases, going to the nonprofit directly may make sense. The donor could ask for annual reports, interview staff members, meet with beneficiaries, etc. to learn about the impact and organizational performance. However, I’m not sure that’s the best use of ones time if the donation is a smaller amount (less than, say $1K? I’m not sure the best number for this cut-off). I think it is because of this problem that so many donors rely on word-of-mouth from friends and family members for recommendations about where to donate. Many of those recommendations come from personal experiences with the organization, but I bet a good number of those recommendations lack the perspective of the work all organizations are doing in that cause. So, if the donor wants to take a cross-sector perspective, I believe donors need help sorting through all the data and organizations. If we (the nonprofit sector) can really create an efficient system to share good information about nonprofit impact, I believe that will save both donors and the nonprofits valuable time–on the one hand, searching for information and on the other hand, catering to the questions of every donor.
Eric Weaver

It’s All about the people

Eric Weaver from Opportunity Fund here. The best way to evaluate whether a social benefit organization is on the right track is to look at the people involved–management, board and volunteers. Find high-integrity people who could easily be doing other, more lucrative things with their paid or volunteer time and invest in them. Look for management longevity and an organization that empowers people to make decisions wherever they are on the org chart. This is something I’ve learned from the good venture capitalists.
- Sean Stannard-Stockton
  
  It’s All about the people
  
  One of my favorites Warren Buffett quotes:
  
  "When you have able managers of high character running businesses about which they are passionate, you can have a dozen or more reporting to you and still have time for an afternoon nap."
Steve Wright

Money is necessary in order to solve real problems

   1. What are the most critical elements that signal that a nonprofit is deserving of a donation?

I agree with Eric "The best way to evaluate whether a social benefit organization is on the right track is to look at the people involved–management, board and volunteers." Additionally, it cannot be understated how critical it is that the donor/investor accept responsibility not just to the destination of their dollars but to the specific solution that the money is helping to fund. Investors/Donors must "buy in" to the organization’s theory of change bringing not just their money but their connections and their intellects.

   2. What is the most meaningful financial information that can help a donor determine a nonprofit’s ability to sustain their organization?

In the case of a social business, financial measures are operational measures. As you mentioned earlier in the chain, in a for-profit venture, financial profit is THE measure of success. In a social venture, even for orgs with high earned revenue, financial metrics are about efficient use of resources. So, where profit margins are supposed to be maximized in a for-profit, in a social business, they must be minimized to get maximum social-profit margins.

   3. What is the most meaning non-financial information that can help a donor determine a nonprofit’s ability to successful implement programs that work?

There is no quantifiable metric for a unit of good. The state of the art is to: Count what you can. Tell powerful stories. Sell it. Iterate. I think we get confused about the purpose of metrics and I would like to suggest that they are not as close to money as they are though to be. The reason to measure is to check to see where you are, how fast you are going and if you are done yet. Referring back to the first question, you invest in great people with great organizations. Great organizations focus on their efficacy, not on their revenue.

   4. What is the most meaningful information that can help a donor determine how much of a difference a nonprofit’s programs actual make?

Well, that depends on how much money is on the table. For "a lot" of money, it’s a partnership. The best case scenario is alignment and partnership. For longtail pennies, your best pitch-o-the-day. Everything in between is a calculus of how much effort each has to expend to make the deal.

   5. Since much of the information of interest to nonprofit analysts is released only on a voluntary basis by nonprofits, how should they react when some charities share substantive information, revealing weaknesses and past failures, while the vast majority share no substantive information?

We need pressure on the vanity funders. It is critical that funders take responsibility for solving real problems and not measure themselves purely on whether or not and to what effect their money was spent. I think funders like Rockefeller are doing a great job of trying to be catalytic in their funding.
Kevin Hodgkins

Its all about planning and execution

I think the most important way to move "beyond the metrics" are to analyse plans and subsequent execution against and modification of those plans in the face of results (positive or negative).

As an "investor" it of course matters what the firm I invest in does, it matters even more how they do it and what they plan to do in the future. If a firm has past success in executing against plans it is more likely they will be able to execute against future plans.

There is no objective measure that states "entity x provides greater social equity than entity y". It is up to each "investor" to determine which outputs and outcomes of a social purpose enterprise provide the most important levels of social equity.

So in short, research firms that address a problem you think needs addressed, look at their past plans and performance against them, then look at their future plans to see if you think the plan seems sound and trust in a firm with good execution history to be able to meet the goals and objectives specified in the plans.

Financial metrics become important just as with investing in businesses; does the firm have the cash-flow to execute its plans, is its revenue base significant and robust, is its balance sheet strong?
- Leslie Crutchfield
  
  To Move Beyond Metrics, Change Your Unit of Analysis
  
  Sean’s questions are thought-provoking and so many of these comments are insightful. The problem is, the discussion is framed around an impossible goal. Even if donors and the nonprofits they fund figure out the “right” metrics and more resources flow to a relative handful of nonprofits achieving the greatest impact, we will be missing the boat. We’ll still be looking for ways to differentiate between “good” and “bad” nonprofits – picking winners and losers. But social change – whether measured in terms of college matriculation rates of low-income and minority students or by level of reduced carbon emissions – cannot be traced along a linear path to one or even a few organizations. For most societal issues, one nonprofit can no more be fully responsible for achieving a successful outcome than one company or even country can be blamed alone for global warming, anymore than one government agency is solely responsible for responding to an epidemic or natural disaster. Cause and effect are rarely that simple.
  
  It’s more often the case that a collection of institutions and individuals work in concert together to achieve significant societal shifts – collections that include nonprofits but also government agencies, private enterprises, philanthropic foundations, the media, among others. You can’t very well make a dent on carbon emissions if you don’t change the way carbon-intensive industries operate and alter laws that govern them. And fixing or creating laws and influencing entire industries requires cross-sector leadership, which is often initiated by social entrepreneurs but the outcomes are never accomplished by nonprofits alone. It’s less a matter of which individual nonprofits deserve more or less of your support, and more important for donors to be able to support an ecosystem of actors to work in closer alignment so their programs, services and advocacy actually achieve the desired effect they each seek.
  
  So to Erin’s point above, I’d like to see the conversation shift from rating individual nonprofits and focus instead on how more donors and nonprofits can together begin to measure their collective contributions across a field, cause, or “ecosystem” (as Greg Dees and other have written). There are a few early examples of donors who’ve figured out how to this. Strive, a subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks Foundation, is moving hundreds of nonprofits, corporations and school district and government agencies leaders toward better outcomes for public school students by inventing and implementing a “cradle to career” success measurement system in Cincinnati, Ohio and Northern Kentucky. And Pew’s Cultural Data Project is doing something similar with arts organizations in Pennsylvania and other U.S. states. These and other early adopters are described in FSG’s “Breakthroughs in Shared Measurement” http://www.fsg impact.org/ideas/pdf/Breakthroughs_in_Shared_Measurement_complete.pdf
  
  Initiatives like these drive field-wide outcomes because they’ve managed to set goals and measure progress across an entire field, and then have steered funding to those nonprofits that are able to show how their programs contribute to advancing those outcomes. The difference here is that donors are using their funding to produce alignment and synergy among nonprofits, rather than fanning the flames of competition between cash-strapped nonprofits that already spend too much time vying for scarce grant dollars. By taking a field-wide view, they’ve shifted the unit of analysis away from single nonprofits to defining and advancing outcomes across an entire field.
  
  How can we get more donors to move in this direction?
  - Sean Stannard-Stockton
    
    To Move Beyond Metrics, Change Your Unit of Analysis
    
    Leslie, the for-profit economy has long been enamored with the idea that by coordinating the activities of multiple entities, we could create the best outcomes. But as attractive as this idea is, history has shown that a free market of individual firms being supported independently ends up leading to the best results.
    
    Even free markets need investments in infrastructure and other ground rules, but the role of a centralized funder attempting to "support an ecosystem of actors to work in closer alignment so their programs, services and advocacy actually achieve the desired effect they each seek," is widely understood to not work.
    
    I’m open to the idea that the nonprofit sector is different, but can you address why a centralized, coordinating role for funders will work in the nonprofit sector when it has failed in the for-profit field?
    - Leslie Crutchfield
      
      To Move Beyond Metrics, Change Your Unit of Analysis
      
      Sean, you raise a great question about free market systems (capitalism) vs. centrally-controlled economies (communism), and which model might bode better for the social sector. I agree that “a centralized funder” role isn’t a recipe for success. What I was alluding to is something a bit different: Instead of a central donor, it’s actually a NETWORKED role for diverse donors and nonprofits. In this approach, members of the network are connected by their commitment to achieving a common set of outcomes on an issue, but the donors make grants to any nonprofit they choose and the nonprofits operate programs continue to operate independently. It’s somewhat akin to how social media platforms like Wikipedia work; there is a common code of conduct but participants are otherwise free to act as they wish within those parameters.
      
      For instance, the funders and organizations in Strive have determined five common priority goals for kids in Cincinnati – desired outcomes such as entering Kindergarten, middle school and high school with certain levels of math and writing proficiency that are indicators for a child’s success later in life. Each organization that serves youth –whether a local Head Start program, charter school, traditional public school, or another player—works to achieve those 5 goals, and the donors are free to fund whichever nonprofit they want (no funds pass through Strive, there is no central collection or distribution of funds). The difference is, the donors and the nonprofits have all agreed to measure success toward the SAME set of outcomes that are based on a common understanding of what is best for KIDS, and they agree to use the same measures. As a result, nonprofits in this scenario spend less time creating tailored reports for dozens if not hundreds of different funders, and funders no longer receive long rambling reports from isolated nonprofits (which they rarely read anyway) and that are impossible to cross-reference and compare based on results. Instead, donors and nonprofits alike can instantly see who is performing best against these common goals – again, defined by what is best for the kids’ futures, rather than by each individual organization’s mission.
      
      Sounds ideal, right? In practice, this is extremely difficult to do, and the one example I’ve given here (Strive) is only in its first few years of existence; while it’s had early success, it’s long term impact is still undetermined. But I hold it up because it illustrates the possibilities of what can be achieved if donors move beyond just focusing in picking and choosing among isolated nonprofits, and instead set their eyes on the prize of achieving larger wins. This is what great nonprofits do – the big “a-ha” in writing Forces for Good was that the 12 high-impact nonprofits Heather and I studied were successful because they focused on advancing larger causes, and they built movements and worked across sectors to achieve those goals. I believe that donors who want to achieve big impact should do the same thing.
      
      To another point you made earlier, this kind of intensive approach is not realistic for the casual or “everyday” donor. It requires a commitment of time, energy and resources that only foundations and high net worth families (who often employ consultants or FT staff) are likely willing and able to participate in. For the everyday donor, I don’t know what the answer is. You rightly point out that the metrics they are using now aren’t ideal –most Social Edgers would likely agree that low overhead ratios or even a diversified funding base are not necessarily indicators that a nonprofit is high-impact (they certainly weren’t predictors of success for the 12 nonprofits in Forces for Good). Yet there is still the issue that Americans alone give $300 billion on average annually – the vast chunk represented by millions of every-day donors who mostly give locally.
      
      Is there a role for higher net worth donors and foundations to play in signaling to everyday donors the need focus on causes and solving problems, not just picking nonprofits? Right now Charity Navigator is one of the most popular platforms that everyday donors use inform their funding decisions. I applaud Ken’s efforts to add different measures to Charity Navigator’s ratings systems so that they better reflect impact or outcomes. Perhaps there is a role that high-profile platforms Charity Navigator and others to give everyday donors information that measures progress across entire causes or fields, perhaps organized by local community -?
      - Jeff Mowatt
        
        Beyond numbers, to people
        
        Leslie, A Jewish friend informs me that The Talmud mentions in several places & Tractates that important as it is to provide charity (a recommendation is between 10% – 20% of ones earnings) to the needy, it is far more important & meritorious to actually set someone up in business or help provide a livelihood to further bolster his independence & build his self-esteem.
        
        A major influence for people-centered econoomic development (P-CED) was the work of Carl R Rogers, the psychologist who believed that people given the means to solve their own problems could flourish and grow. P-CED put this into an economic context.
        
        The collaboration and information sharing aspect of this was a major emphasis in the founding white paper. For this reason, a significant part of our work has focussed on digital inclusion as part of economic inclusion.
        
        http://www.p-ced.com/1/about/history/
        
        This had begun in 1996 with a critique of free-market capitalism since 1970 and by 2009 when the debt based paradigm collapsed as anticipated, the Economics for Ecology conference in Ukraine, where communism was a recent memory offered the opportunity to discuss the economic thinking over the past 90 years, drawing on the PBS series Commanding Heights to do this.
        
        http://www.p-ced.com/1/projects/ukraine/sumy/
  - Steve Wright
    
    To Move Beyond Metrics, Change Your Unit of Analysis
    
    Leslie,
    
    I agree. I have read two pieces recently that speak to this idea.
    
    http://www.monitorinstitute.org/whatsnext
    
    and interestingly, Malcolm Gladwell’s critique of social media for social activism.
    
    http://www.newyorker.com/…/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
    
    Both of these argue persuasively that collaboration and coordination are critical to achieving social goals. This is very different than the competitive frame of traditional financial markets. I think that the answer is in how we express value and outcomes. If donors/investors can take a more active (and agile) valuing its contribution (money, connections, convening, research…) as part of the solution then we can be better aligned. So maybe in terms of how donors "pick" social sector orgs, maybe the frame is better understood as business development than it is venture capital?
    - Leslie Crutchfield
      
      To Move Beyond Metrics, Change Your Unit of Analysis
      
      Steve, Yes! I like the way you put that, ie. framing the donor’s role as business developer vs VC. Can you unpack that a little more? In general I totally agree that donors can take a more active role that extends beyond just giving money (I am actually working on a book right now about that with FSG, it’s going to be called "Do More Than Give: The 6 Practices of Donors Who Change the World").
      
      Also, the Monitor and Gladwell pieces you reference are spot on. Gladwell gives a useful frame for how online networks are useful when "weak" personal ties are sufficient to spur action; the kind of network described above about Strive could be described as a "strong tie" networks. (And its just a great piece about how social activism actually happens!)
      - Steve Wright
        
        To Move Beyond Metrics, Change Your Unit of Analysis
        
        The Bus Dev v. VC distinction comes from watching the tactics used when successful outcomes are generated. When funders develop a theory of change and become actors in the process, then the organizations that they choose to work with are partners more than they are investments. The partnership context is far more dynamic and both partners as explicitly attached to the social outcome as well as accountable for their own performance. There is still an investment or grant and accountability tied to that. The role of metrics to understand progress toward solution. The rest is reputation and business development. Or marketing and sales depending on your lens.
      - Sean Stannard-Stockton
        
        To Move Beyond Metrics, Change Your Unit of Analysis
        
        Steve, I wonder though to what extent what looks/feels like "collaboration" to funders looks/feels like co-option to the grantees. We can call it collaboration, but when a funder is making a grant to a nonprofit so that it can fulfill the foundation’s theory of change, this may be called collaboration, but may actually just be the funder paying the nonprofit for program execution.
        
        When I buy a cup of coffee from Starbucks, I’m paying them to do something I want, not collaborating in a shared coffee experience.
        
        On the other hand, investors in organizations truly are in the same boat with the investee. They are putting their resources behind the grantee and then become incentivized to truly collaborate and help the grantee in whatever way they can.
Kate Seely

To Move Beyond Metrics, Change Your Unit of Analysis

I love Leslie’s point above; I couldn’t agree more with it. There has to be field-wide support in order to achieve substantial systemic change. Of course, there now has to be alignment between funder and grantee, which can drive which programs are funded, but by funding different groups within a field, you cover all of your bases, as long as you maintain baseline values of strong management, values-driven impact, adaptability, cultural sensitivity, as well as programmatic impact, of course. How that is measured can vary. The part that a funder must believe deeply in is how the organization makes its decisions, i.e., what they base decisions on.

An interesting point was made above and that, having one foot in the npo world, one foot in the foundation world, and a third foot in the social enterprise for profit world, is the power dynamic between funder and grantee. I wonder if we will ever be able to get away from that difficult dynamic. Transparency is definitely a step in the right direction, especially around failure, but I don’t think it’s the whole equation. And why is it so different than the for profit sector? (Which links to another Social Edge discussion around the analysis of social enterprise.)
Holden Karnofsky

GiveWell’s approach

I’m writing from GiveWell (www.givewell.org). While we feel that Sean’s framework asks important questions and is conceptually valid, we have found that it seems practically more useful to focus on the case for a nonprofit’s impact (i.e., its effects on the people it serves) rather than trying to read the organizational culture (which is what several of Sean’s criteria seem to require).

We evaluate nonprofits by examining the independent literature relevant to their work, looking for relevant info that they choose to disclose (via their website and annual report), and – for promising or big-name cases – speaking with their staff and requesting relevant documents. We focus on four key questions:

1. What do they do? (What are all the different programs and how much is spent on each? How do dollars translate to improved lives and what are the major expenses?)

2. What’s the evidence that it works?

3. What do you get for your dollar? (We believe that full translations to dollar terms, such as SROI, tend to add more confusion than clarity, but we do think cost-effectiveness needs to be considered – for more on how we approach this issue, see http://www.givewell.org/…/cost-effectiveness)

4. Is there room for more funding? (This is a rarely discussed and, in our view, underappreciated issue; more at http://www.givewell.org/…/scalability)

We have not attempted to use this process to produce ratings for large numbers of charities; instead, we have focused on generating a small list of outstanding organizations that are transparently sharing substantive information to answer these questions, and that we feel are unusually good bets to do a great deal of good with a donation. The more people reward this outstanding behavior, the more we will move toward a world in which nonprofits can raise money by doing a great job helping people and demonstrating their effectiveness. You can see our top charities at http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
- Sam Lee
  
  GiveWell’s approach
  
  Having followed GiveWell for sometime, I think the both evidence of program impact and evidence of organizational performance have its own place.
  
  For Givewell’s intended audience, "I have some money to give and I’d like to maximize my impact right now. I am not too particular about the causes, and I don’t have much time to do research, etc.", Givewell’s preference of organizations with evidence of program impact makes good sense.
  
  But it does leave out some organizations that are worth supporting for other reasons: organizations with new, promising approaches that it is premature to determine the impact.
  
  Another one is areas that finding solid evidence remains (inherently) challenging, e.g., the impact of education in developing countries are still unclear (I believe Givewell commented sometime back). But I think most people can agree that 1)education is important, and 2) chances are some organizations in education do great work and some do not. So if you want to support education, what do you do? I think it’d be reasonable to resort to using a set of reasonable indicators, including high-performing team and organizations. After all, to produce great impact, one would need a great team.
Colette Stanzler

Relevance of Approach & Standardized Indicators

Hello, this is Colette Stanzler from Social Impact Research (SIR), the research department of Root Cause.

I wanted to comment on the discussion around prioritization of “evidence of program impact” over “evidence of organizational performance.” As often discussed, conducting studies to provide evidence of impact per program is not realistic for the majority of nonprofits due to funding and resource constraints; therefore, we need to find a more feasible way to demonstrate “what works.” SIR conducts research and speaks to experts to learn what approaches result in impact in addressing a specific social issue and then analyzes the organizational performance of nonprofits using those approaches in their work. We believe focusing on high performing nonprofits using approaches recognized to be effective serves as a proxy for evidence of program impact.

I agree with David’s comment that metrics cannot be used in isolation. SIR uses a standardized set of common and social issue specific indicators to analyze the performance of organizations using similar approaches to address a social problem. We analyze nonprofits based on their Organizational Health, Program Performance, and Social and Economic Outcomes. We use common indicators, regardless of social issue, to analyze the Organizational Health and Social and Economic Outcomes components of a nonprofit. For example, indicators to evaluate a nonprofit’s financial sustainability or its work to create systemic change (e.g. field development, advocacy, and/or collaboration across sectors) can be similar for workforce development, obesity prevention, and college access programs. However, analysis of the performance of the programs or services provided requires issue specific indicators. These issue specific indicators are related to how comprehensive a program is (e.g., to what degree does a workforce development program provide case management to ensure that participants receive services to address barriers to employment) as well as to the outcomes being achieved (e.g., how many graduates of a workforce development program receive wage increases in 6, 12, 24 months). If an organizations does not focus all of its services on addressing a single social issue, rather it provides multiple services such as a Community Service Agency, analyzing performance by individual programs is important as some may be more high performing than others within the same organization.

While there are many common and social issue indicators, or metrics, that donors could use to gauge whether a nonprofit is high performing, perhaps a good place to start is looking at whether the organization is using an approach that is recognized to create impact.
- Sean Stannard-Stockton
  
  Relevance of Approach & Standardized Indicators
  
  Colette, I hadn’t seen Root Cause express your view in quite this way before. I couldn’t agree more. Yesterday, the head of Nurse-Family Partnership, a well known high impact nonprofit, wrote a guest post on my blog in which she laid out the keys to creating a high impact nonprofit.
  
  http://www.tacticalphilanth…xt-nurse-family-partnership
  
  One of her key points was that an organization needed to be high performing in order to deliver a high impact program.
Peter Burgess

Value Accounting

Dear Colleagues

Thanks to Jeff Mowatt for alerting me to this discussion.

I am delighted to see an active discussion around "Nonprofit Analysis: Beyond Metrics" … but my take is somewhat different from most people. I start with the idea that "management information is the least amount of information needed to make good decisions in a timely manner" and also that more and more and more money and wealth should not be the goal of economic activity in a sane society.

Since the beginning of my career I have been impressed by the elegance and power of double entry accounting … and appalled by the idea that more and more consumption and more and more profit are the primary goals of market economics and capital markets. Money is only a part of the equation … the other is value.

People usually respond to the idea of value by observing that it is subjective! My response is "Yes … but is it important?". In most all cases people consider value to be important … and even though it is subjective, I then argue that it can be quantified. There are methods for doing this … simply put, everything is relative. In some cases price is a proxy for value … but some very important values are usually not being traded so there is no price proxy but there may still be quantification.

In The Burgess Method for Value Accounting we use standard values in much the same way cost accountants use standard costs … it simplifies everything, without going simplistic … the problem with, for example, averages!

"Beyond Metrics" suggests that there is going to be quantification of the money metrics and only qualitative information about everything else. This is the approach that has been in play for decades, and really does not work very well and contributes to information overload without contributing much to understanding progress and performance.

The Burgess Method which uses "State". "Progress" and "Performance" as three discreet elements of a coherent framework enables way more understanding with reduced data overload … just as corporate financial reporting facilitates corporate management and decision making.

The Burgess Method also looks at entities like the community as a reporting entity … and activities … not so much simply the organization. People work in an organization, or buy from an organization … they live in a community and it is improving quality of life in the community that should be the core metric for success!

Early in my career I worked on getting money accounting computerized in the corporate world. It would be great to see value accounting sitting on top of the technology used for modern social networks!

Peter Burgess

http://communityanalyticsca.blogspot.com/
- Jeff Mowatt
  
  Value Accounting
  
  Hi Peter,
  
  I tuned in to the comment you make about building community that’s certainly something I’d like to be able to express in terms of performance.
  
  Our efforts have been based on deploying "social" capitalism to create new wealth flows in communities where the trickle down effect of free market economics is not evident. It began with an international initiative in Russia and moved on to Crimea and then then the UK and Ukraine.
  
  Rather than philanthropy in acts of charity which would be spent once and gone, it advocated investment in building community wealth to "replicate localised people-centered economic development on a global basis"
  
  The overseas initiatives have been "soft power" strategies aimed at communities at risk where conventional economic development has created excluded communities and the risk of civil conflict.
  
  These are issues that I note will be found in two of the tracks for the SOCAP10 conference which is just about to start.
  
  http://www.socialcapitalmarkets.net/…/socap1-tracks.html
  
  In the context of metrics, the impact could for example be related in terms of the number of businesses created and the impact this has had in turn on community cohesion and well being. It could also be conveyed by the influence on government which leads to increases in domestic adoption.
  
  We know intuitively, that these things have deep impact but can we quantify them and distinguish them from other influences on prevailing social and economic conditions?
  
  I could also weight this against the impact of philanthropy. Oxfam for example who had started their microfinance work in Russia as the work in Tomsk was coming to a conclusion, had been able to leverage about 40% of the number of businesses over approximately the same time scale.
  
  Could BMVA be appropriate in the context of our work in sustainable business for social purpose?
  
  Jeff Mowatt
  
  http://people-centered.net/
Ken Berger

Measuring What Matters Most

This is a wonderful and interesting discussion, however I am going to assume that many readers may know little if anything about Charity Navigator. Therefore, I will start with the basics. Charity Navigator is in the midst of the first major overhaul of our rating system since we launched in 2002. We call the new rating system we are developing CN 2.0. For the first 8 years of our history, for a variety of reasons, our rating system was one dimensional, focusing solely on the financial dimension of a charity’s performance. Furthermore, over half of the weighted score of our charity rating system was concerned with variables related to agency overhead. CN 2.0 (which we will showcase at SoCap with a sample prototype of where we hope to be in 2012)is slated to be a three dimensional rating system that considers (1) financial health (revised to more heavily weight matters of sustainability) (2) accountability and transparency, and (3) effectiveness and results (we are trying to use terms most readily available to the general public).

Our primary mission is to be a "guide to intelligent giving" for donors and we believe that these are the three most critical dimensions to consider. Furthermore, we consider element (3) to be of utmost importance and will weight it most heavily in our revised system.

We applaud the work of GiveWell and RootCause among other new web sites that do an in-depth drill down and research on impact and high performance. We also are interested in the work that is underway to use crowdsourcing, expert reviews, beneficiary feedback among other tools. For us, the idea of "triangulating" to look at the nonprofits from as many angles as possible, is a means whereby we hope to attain ample depth of analysis, while scaling a macro tool that can look at nonprofits of all kinds. Therefore, we have signed collaboration agreements with a number of these groups and hope to integrate their invaluable analysis into CN 2.0 as well.

We are also open to investigating how collaborative and community wide efforts are addressing social problems, but at the moment we have got our hands full with revamping our basic tool!!! We believe that the recent study by Hope Consulting corroborates our experience that the vast majority of donors are interested in evidence of results of the work of the groups they support, but are not interested in doing heavy lifting to find the limited results data available. At the same time, the study corroborates our view that donors want information that is (1) Simple to access, (2) Easy to understand and (3) at no cost. That last one leads to a hell of a business model for us!

We believe it is critical that we all work together to maximize the value of the information we can push out to donors and to drive nonprofits to become more focused on high performance. We also believe that we need to continue to educate donors and nonprofit leaders as to what matters most in evaluating the performance of charities. We do not believe that arguments that it is too complex, too expensive or that organizations are too unique to be evaluated hold water. At the same time, we agree that this is a work in progress, that we need to beware of oversimplification and we need to continue to learn as we go. There is no simple answer to the question of how we measure what matters most. However, that is not an excuse not measure performance and hold INDIVIDUAL as well as the COLLECTIVE of nonprofits accountable for what they do. To do otherwise will simply continue the sad state of the nonprofit sector where philanthropic decisions are usually based on the heart, with no consideration of the head. That will only lead to heartbreak in the end.
Rebecca Malby

Non-profit analysis: beyond metrics

We are in the process of prototyping a Social Value toolkit that adds value through the process of appraising the value of any social enterprise.

We run an international network – Shaping Health Systems, from the University of Leeds UK, that includes Social Entrepreneurs, and were challenged by them to develop a model that helps funders differentiate between investments; that captures non-financial value as well as financial value; that generates a process that enables the social enterprise to get better at what it does; that creates a relationship between funders and funded; and which honours the complexity of social change.

We found that SE’s are required to provide ‘proof’ that ‘its working’ in a way thatdoesn’t reflect the complexity of what they do eg SROI – or the dynamic that is created in determining which meaasures to use.

Where this handbook is unique is that it requires a number of steps to be in play at the same time, in recognition that social problems are not linear. The group has dubbed it the ‘fair chance’ approach. This acknowledges that with such complex issues you cannot guarantee success, you can only create the conditions for it.

Our Fair Chance model is made up of five interdependent steps. It recognises that:

• All these steps have to be in play at the same time

• There are choices to be made in terms of both what to invest in, and how to use that investment

• Everyone has to keep trying all the time – creating social change is a continuous effort

• No one has overall control – it is not possible to have complete control.

Step A: Determining Social Value

Here you work with your stakeholders to determine what you intend this program or project to do – what is the social value you are trying to create? Stakeholders are those providing, using, or influencing and shaping services. They are funders, commissioners and anyone else who can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to your plans.

Step B: Measuring Output Value

Here you design a process for determining what output metrics you are going to gather, and ways of capturing any unintended consequences of the program.

Step C: Measuring Process Value

Here you measure how well you are working within the project in order to get the best possible outcomes.

Step D: Making Sense

Here you interpret the data to make sense of whether you achieved your intended outcomes, what unintended outcomes emerged, and how well you worked together. This generates a report on impact and creates options for the future.

Step E: Making judgements

Here you work with your stakeholder group again – the ones in Step A and any others you now think you need – to decide which options are the ones to pursue now.

We know that how you go about social change is as important as what social change you are trying to create, and that a critical part of knowing what to do is understanding the impact of what you have done so far, and making judgements about how to enhance your impact. This approach seeks to do just that.

We are prototyping at the moment and hope to have the handbook and toolkit ready in january.

Becky Malby, University of Leeds with the Shaping Health Systems Network
Melissa Stevens

Evaluation of Nonprofit Medical R&D

Over the past three years, our medical philanthropy program at FasterCures focused a good deal on developing an evaluation framework for nonprofits that fund or engage in medical R&D. Given the technical complexity of the work these groups do and their inherent differences from advocacy and service-delivery groups, we feel that these organizations should be assessed through a unique lens. Our evaluation framework is designed to highlight effective practices that we have identified through our ongoing work with innovative nonprofit organizations, and was refined based on our findings from the FasterCures Philanthropy Advisory Service (PAS) program (http://www.philanthropyadvisoryservice.org). In its pilot phase, PAS assessed 20 nonprofit disease research organizations in four disease areas in order to inform donor decision-making, but did not provide specific funding recommendations.

To the initial questions about measuring performance vs. impact and the relative importance of financial vs. nonfinancial metrics, our analysis of nonprofits incorporates a combination of all of these to ensure a holistic view of an organization and its efforts. Many of our metrics reflect ideas already discussed above. Determining how organizations stack up requires careful due diligence—including the review of publicly available information, direct conversation with the organizations themselves, and consultation with scientific experts to determine where organizations fit in the R&D landscape and how they contribute to the field. In all cases, we evaluate organizations within the context of their own mission and strategy.

To objectively measure the impact of an organization, we focus evaluation efforts on key drivers of organizational success:

1. Accountability: organizational policies and mechanisms that ensure funds are being used responsibly and effectively to achieve the organization’s goals. Our analysis includes strategic planning practices, monitoring and the use of milestones to assess progress and guide funding, backgrounds and expertise of the management team, financial sustainability as measure in terms of donor diversification and planning for revenue in line with activity needs, technology transfer and commercialization policies that are designed to promote translation from knowledge into practicable medical solutions, and engagement with patients and affected communities.

2. Collaboration: efforts to work with R&D partners, the wider scientific community, and other key stakeholders that are essential to ensuring that the maximum value is derived from every investment. Our analysis includes creating and leveraging venues for sharing knowledge, fostering R&D partnerships, engaging international R&D partners, and working with other R&D groups to address systemic challenges, reduce duplication, and identify and fill critical gaps.

3. Research effectiveness: ability to demonstrate effectiveness at executing plans and impact on scientific progress in the field. Given the long time horizon and high level of uncertainty in medical R&D, it often is difficult to predict the impact that an organization, particularly one working on the earlier stages of the R&D spectrum, may eventually have on patients. As a result, our analysis includes progress against the organization’s own plans, alignment of the R&D portfolio with stated goals and objectives, and contribution to the overall pipeline of products and/or knowledge in the field.

4. Resource building: engagement in efforts to fill critical resource gaps that limit scientific progress in the organization’s field. Our analysis includes investment in infrastructure and resources and in training and career development opportunities for researchers.

More information on our nonprofit evaluation framework is included in our forthcoming publication “Giving Smarter: Building a High-Impact Medical Philanthropy Portfolio” which will be available soon at http://www.fastercures.org.

Melissa Stevens, Director of Strategic Initiatives, FasterCures

Loren Becker, Global Health Program Manager,FasterCures
David Strouhal

Metrics

As an engineer, I’ve generally been a supporter of metrics. To me, their quantitative quality makes them easy to understand and evaluate. Like Peter Burgess, I agree that virtually anything qualifiable can be quantified. However, you’ve got to make sure what you’re measuring is what you actually want to know. One of the reoccurring themes in my MBA classes right now is that managers often target the wrong metrics, or don’t develop the right ones enough to be useful. Generally, this seems to be because businesses are not the same (they have different core values, to use some biz terminology) and managers get confused. It strikes me that this might be also true for social enterprises. Various social ventures attempt to address different problems in an almost infinite number of ways. Therefore, if you want to compare various enterprises, the metrics must be broad enough to apply to all of them. Or, the system must be so extremley nimble that the complexity will make it difficult to comprehend. Given the diversity, creating this system will be an epic effort at a minimum.

Until then, I personally feel that we should be evaluating enterprises quantitatively on how they perform relative to the metrics they’ve created for themselves and qualitatively on what these metrics actually are. These might be reduced to a comprehensive score by category. For example, if I were seeking to donate money, I might first choose a category (African poverty, microfinance, etc) and then review each enterprises’ score. This score would be higher for those achieving their metrics but could be sorted by the types of metrics they chose. This would allow groups to maintain their creativity and find a metric that targets their effort without diminishing their value relative to other groups.
Jessica Tracy

Non-financial Metrics?

Since beginning sustainability classes as part of my MBA program, I have struggled with the "how" in measuring outside of the financial metrics for-profit business are use to. My numbers background really gets in the way, there should only be quantitative measures. Qualitative metrics are not going to be consistent and can be very subjective, so we may end up comparing apples to oranges in comparing two nonprofits. GAAP and IFRS are even merging, so-to-speak, to make financial metrics consistent – how can we make qualitative measures consistent?

I look forward to following this conversation as I understand the need, just struggle with the concept of how.
Jeff Y

Critical elements

I think the most critical elements that signal a non-profit is deserving of a donation are as follows.

1. Social/environmental mission – the non-profit has to have a well-defined, well-understood problem that it is planning to address. Prospective donors must understand the nature and size of the problem. These can be defined in a variety of ways.

2. A feasible plan – the non-profit has to have a plan to address the problem that is either proven, or new and innovative with a reasonable chance for success. The resources, such as financial and human capital, required to execute the plan must be within reach.

3. Capable leader(s) – the social entrepreneur(s) leading the venture must have the energy, commitment and know-how to see the plan through. They do not need to have extensive business or domain knowledge, but they should have some history of achievement, resiliency and working in the face of adversity.
Aurel Brudan

Metrics or KPIs – the way they are used and the value they ad

The issue with metrics is not having them, but how to use them to generate value. A better term for them is Key Performance Indicators or KPIs. It reflects the link that has to exist between them and performance.

KPIs are useful in monitoring if the organization is on track to achieve what it set out to do and make adjustments as necessary. On one hand they should reflect organizational capability: volunteer management, ability to attract financial support, financial discipline, good processes in place. It is not sufficient to have noble objectives set up, it is important to ensure the capacity to deliver as planned. KPIs can be used to assess, monitor and improve this capacity.

On the other hand KPIs are used to monitor the impact of activities in the area of focus of the organization. In this sense they can be input, process, output and outcome indicators. This reflects the ability to use the resources wisely and generate benefits as planned. It is not enough to attract funds, print fliers, distribute them. It is essential to have measure their impact in changing behaviors and making a difference.

Funding for NGOs can be informed by both these type of KPIs. For examples of KPIs specific to this sector, I recommend http://www.smartkpis.com/…/non-profit-non-governmental

More details about measuring performance with KPIs are available in the resources section: http://www.smartkpis.com/pages/context/

Ultimately the value added by KPIs in any sector depends on how they are used.
Lakshmi Narayana

Ways for Nonprofit Ananlysis

The ways or the reflections for the points raised on "NON PROFIT ANALYSIS" are as follows:

1. What are the most critical elements that signal that a nonprofit is deserving of a donation?

Reflection: The critical elements which acts as basis to decide which nonprofit deserves a donation are:

@ Legal status – registration and continuity

@ Vision, Mission, Objectives – targeted groups and ways of addressing the

    challenges under vulnerability.

@ Service Delivery Model / Channel – connectivity, level of participation,

    affordability, need based strategies and adaptability.

@ Impact and success models – improvement, better living and holistic

    development.

@ Financial Operations – mode of deposits, transactions, utilization and

    reflections including acknowledgment.

2. What is the most meaningful financial information that can help a donor determine a nonprofit’s ability to sustain their organization?

Reflections: It includes:

@ Mode of the donation

@ Financial position and need of the organization

@ Balance sheet

3. What is the most meaning non-financial information that can help a donor determine a nonprofit’s ability to successful implement programs that work?

Reflections: The non financial information plays major role in deciding the capacity of the organization for implementing the programmes for which it is raising the donations as:

@ Organizational structure

@ Service models

@ Level of participation with the stakeholders and targeted groups

@ Networking and use of technologies for the state of art of technology /

    service

4. What is the most meaningful information that can help a donor determine how much of a difference a nonprofit’s programs actual make?

Reflections: The gap between the plan and actual do work as a strong basis for raising the needs of the peopel as well as the orgnaization which includes in terms of:

@ Percentage of physical achievement

@ Level of impact in the living both quantitatively and qualitatively

@ The change in the attitude of the stakehlders

@ Level of particiation

5. Since much of the information of interest to nonprofit analysts is released only on a voluntary basis by nonprofits, how should they react when some charities share substantive information, revealing weaknesses and past failures, while the vast majority share no substantive information?

Reflections: In view of the Acts and Policies, paradigm shift took place in the concept and working of the non profit organization known as NGOs. The concept of service from the traditional voluntary or charity has been moved as right based strategies. This further resulted to:

@ Beneficiary to manager of their own rehabilitation / development

@ Government and Service Providers (NGOs) to facilitator.

@ Welfare moved to developmental activity

@ Exclusion to inclusion.

In view of these shifts, nonprofits has to work with participation and accountability in transparent environment. Under these circumstances, every stakeholder has got the right to know and to share or disseminate the information. In view of use of e-technologies Like: mails, websites, blogs, forums, networks, documents,nothing is there to hide and everything will be evidence based and open to all. It certainly helps the nonprofits to showcase their skills/ capacities and to raise its needs for mobilizing resources(MMM: Manpower, Machinery and Money)

Hope this information helps the donor to decide the eligibility of the nonprofits for extending the support.

I am with the government and nonprofits with the aim of empowering the people for their rights and thus to create better access with barrier free environment as an inclusion.

Looking forward

with thanks