Scaling
Four Mindsets That Accelerate Nonprofit Growth
A reflection on how a set of strategies related to target-setting, financial modeling, program measurement, and organizational culture helped one organization reach a major milestone.
Matthew Forti
Matthew Forti is managing director at One Acre Fund, where he leads the organization’s work outside of Africa and helps oversee its measurement and evaluation function. One Acre Fund assists more than 1 million smallholder farming families in Africa to improve their yields, incomes, and resilience. Prior, Matt was a manager at the Bridgespan Group (@BridgespanGroup), an advisory firm to mission-driven leaders and organizations that supports the design of performance measurement systems for continuous learning and improvement.
sponsored
Big Gift, Big Impact
The cofounder and executive director of One Acre Fund and the managing director of One Acre Fund USA write about the role a big bet played in helping their organization expand its impact.
Collaboration
Resetting the Grantor-Grantee Relationship
Simple changes in mindset and behavior can break the cycle of strain and mistrust in grantor-grantee relationships.
Governance
Challenging Conventional Wisdom on Nonprofit Boards
Rethinking board sizes, term limits, and fundraising requirements may help unlock greater strategic insight and value from your board.
Measurement & Evaluation
How Nonprofits Can Drive Healthy Growth Using SROI
Social return on investment is an underutilized yet surprisingly flexible tool for making strong resource allocation decisions that maximize nonprofit impact.
Measurement & Evaluation
Actionable Measurement: Getting from “Prove” to “Improve”
There’s a set of common questions every direct-service nonprofit should answer to maximize learning, action, and impact.
Nonprofits & NGOs
What’s Your Exit, er, Commitment Strategy?
There are conditions under which nonprofits, even those pursuing transformative scale, will find commitment strategies—rather than exit strategies—to be the right answer for their direct service programs.
Measurement & Evaluation
Measuring Social Return on Investment Before You Invest
Using a social return on investment framework, organizations can estimate the future impact, cost, and scale of programs before they begin, and allocate resources for greater impact.
Nonprofits
When Less Impact Per Client = Greater Social Good
Why mission-driven organizations need a more nuanced understanding of why and how impact may fluctuate over time.
Nonprofits
Social Good = Scale x Impact (Who Knew?)
Why both nonprofits and academics should focus on scale and impact in this simple formula for good.
Measuring Social Impact
Making Measurement Work in Large, Complex Organizations
Four tips on measuring impact for NGOs that have multiple programs across many sites or continents.
Measuring Social Impact
Impact, Not Overhead, Is What Counts
A look at barriers global NGOs face in reporting the right measures of effectiveness—and how funders and grantees can begin to overcome them.
Measuring Social Impact
Measuring to Improve vs. Improving Measurement
From Skoll World Forum 2013: Will new measurement tools such as “big data” be a big distraction or a big opportunity?
Measuring Social Impact
Ten Years of Performance Measurement
Five successes to celebrate, and five areas where we need to see more progress.
Philanthropy
How Leading Philanthropists Fail Well
Five insights from results-oriented philanthropists on how to reap the benefits of failure.
Nonprofit Management
What Obama’s Campaign Can Teach Nonprofits About Measurement
Five measurement practices that Obama’s campaign and high-performing nonprofits have in common.
Measuring Social Impact
Social Sector Measurement: Down but Not Out
Recently released studies confirm that few nonprofits possess the capacity to measure for continuous improvement, but new initiatives launched in 2012 provide hope.
Nonprofits
Measuring to Scale What Works at the YMCA
Armed with robust shared measurement systems, national nonprofit networks are well positioned to scale promising and proven programs.
Nonprofit Management
Five Ways to Avoid the Data System Trap
How nonprofits can assess readiness and lay the groundwork for a successful data system.
Measuring Social Impact
Communicating Impact: If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It!
Nonprofits can use tried-and-true mechanisms from the private sector to better communicate their impact to donors
Foundations
Actionable Measurement at the Gates Foundation
A conversation with Jodi Nelson, head of measurement and evaluation.
Measuring Social Impact
Measuring Advocacy – Yes We Can!
Five measurement strategies that enable rapid course correction and continuous improvement.
Measuring Social Impact
Measurement that Benefits the Measured
Three forms of engagement that can help nonprofits better respond to the needs and strengths of their constituents.
Nonprofit Management
Six Theory of Change Pitfalls to Avoid
Simply putting boxes and lines down on paper doesn’t guarantee that your organization will make better decisions.
Nonprofit Management
Finding the Right Measurement Director
New research reveals that most organizations prioritize the wrong skills in their search for a measurement director.
Measuring Social Impact
Seven Deadly Sins of Impact Evaluation
Seven obstacles to making good decisions about impact evaluations and how to avoid them.
Measuring Social Impact
Ensuring That “Scaling What Works” Actually Works
For “scaling what works” to actually work, we need a new and improved version that addresses two fundamental constraints.
Board Governance
A Holiday Gift for Your Board: A Refreshed Dashboard
Refresh your dashboard to better inform your board’s decisions.
Nonprofit Management
Measuring Leadership Development
To avoid measuring and funding leadership development is to deprive the social sector of one of its greatest performance improvement tools.
Measuring Social Impact
Making Money: A Bonus of Measuring to Improve Performance
Measurement can attract money. A nonprofit that can demonstrate results and improvement is more inviting to potential donors than one that can’t.
Technology & Design
Mobile Measurement: Lowering Costs and Engaging Beneficiaries
We should be paying attention to monitoring and evaluation innovation in developing countries, where technology leads to better programs.
Measuring Social Impact
Don’t Let Conventional Measurement Wisdom Fragment Your Impact
Social impact bonds. Evidence-based funding. Investing in what works. To what do we owe this explosion of “pay-or-performance” funding models?…