March 29, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Sean Stannard-Stockton, a California philanthropy adviser, has recruited a team of blog writers to share their ideas on how to effectively measure the performance of nonprofit groups.
Mr. Stannard-Stockton, who writes the blog Tactical Philanthropy, calls the roundup of blog postings on a single topic “The Giving Carnival.”
And he’s enlisted writers such as Phil Cubeta, a financial and charitable-giving adviser who runs GiftHub and Albert Ruesga, a foundation officer who writes White Courtesy Telephone to sound off on the topic.
In his posting, Mr. Cubeta points out some of the problems that occur when grant makers place too much emphasis on measuring results.
“I can understand the pressure to do so, to be ‘accountable,’ and to have ‘benchmarks,’ ‘balanced score cards,’ ‘leading indicators,’ and the like,” Mr. Cubeta writes. “But I wonder if outcomes measurement does not lead to unimaginative grants. If the grant maker knows that something has to be measured, won’t the grant be retrofitted to that measurement index?”
Mr. Stannard-Stockton, meanwhile, says charities should be rated qualitatively instead of quantitatively. Instead of forcing nonprofit groups to use specific measurements of progress, donors should instead review charities like Gene Shalit looks at movies.
“This country has a robust movie-rating system that is entirely qualitative,” he writes. “We have an enormous system of professional movie critics who make their ratings public and provide detailed commentary on why they like or dislike each film. There is no reason why a similar system could not be developed for charities.”
What do you think about donors’ push to measure results? What information should be most meaningful to potential supporters? Click on the comment link just below this posting to offer your thoughts.
