Becoming More Like Businesses Isn’t Solution for Nonprofit Groups, Author Argues

Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great
by Jim Collins

In his 2001 book Good to Great, Jim Collins provided corporate executives with advice on how to turn good companies into great institutions that achieve sustained growth. With this pamphlet, the author and management expert offers nonprofit leaders their own set of “good-to-great principles.”

While some of his advice is based on recommendations he made to corporate leaders, Mr. Collins says that charities need to do more than simply striving to become like businesses, which have their own share of problems. On leadership, for instance, he argues that the best charity leaders know how to persuade others of the correctness of their decisions, and not simply impose those decisions on people.

On the question of evaluation, Mr. Collins writes that while charities need not quantify their results, they must track their progress to measure their performance and impact, both over the short and long term. He also discusses how reputations for being selective can help charities hire the best employees available, and how promoting a charity’s “brand” can help an organization cement its financial and program success.

In the pamphlet, Mr. Collins also redefines his “Hedgehog Concept” for the nonprofit world. Charity executives should have a clear idea of their mission, how their organization can make a unique contribution to peoples’ lives, and what kinds of resources they rely on to operate. Money isn’t the sole engine that drives charities, he writes, as they also depend on their ability to attract volunteers and employees and cultivate good will among supporters.

Nonprofit leaders, he concludes, should not let government failings or the scope of social problems get in the way of action. He urges charity executives to focus on their niche and build a “pocket of greatness.”

Publisher: Jim Collins; http://www.jimcollins.com; 35 pages; $11.95; ISBN 0-9773264-0-3.