December 11, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
To achieve real results, nonprofit organizations need to manage their operations with a set of focused, concrete, and realizable goals in mind, rather than a broad mission statement, argue the authors of an article in the December issue of the Harvard Business Review.
But, they write, a variety of factors — including donors’ preference that their contributions go to programs, the resulting proliferation of new programs, and charities’ underinvestment in overhead expenses, such as technology — make it difficult for charities to do that.
“Ironically, the dynamics driving the nonprofit sector actually undermine its organizations’ ability to focus on results, despite the mounting pressure to do just that,” write Jeffrey L. Bradach and Thomas J. Tierney, co-founders of Bridgespan, a nonprofit consulting organization in Boston, and Nan Stone, a knowledge partner at Bridgespan.
Nonprofit groups that want to increase their impact, the authors write, need to answer a series of questions:
- Which results will we hold ourselves accountable for?
- How will we achieve them?
- What will results really cost, and how can we finance them?
- How do we build the organization we need to deliver results?
While determining a set of goals may sound easy, it isn’t, the authors write.
“Legitimate needs invariably outstrip any single organization’s ability to meet them,” they write. “So by clarifying its strategy and scope, the nonprofit is also determining what it will not do.”
