M E A S U R I N G WH AT M AT T E R S I N N O N P R O F I T S
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Link your metrics to your mission
Performance metrics can be a powerful manage- ment tool in creating incentives for staff and managers and in ensuring that organizations focus on accomplishing their mission. This idea may be simple, even obvious, but very few non- profits have systematically linked their metrics to their mission, and too many repeat the mistake of confusing institutional achievements with progress toward achieving it. The very act of aligning the mission, goals, and performance metrics of an organization can change it profoundly. After setting ambitious, concrete goals for reducing cancer rates, the American Cancer Society found that it had to change its strategy to meet those goals. Dr. John Seffrin, the organization’s chief execu- tive, explains: “It was immediately obvious to all of our staff that business as usual would not get the job done and that we had to be smarter about allocating our resources and more aggres- sive about trying new strategies. Our new emphasis on advocacy, for example, is the direct result of setting these 2015 goals. . . . Mobilizing major public resources for cancer research makes for better leverage than raising all that money ourselves.” In a sector in which the commitment and motiva- tion of the staff is paramount, the powerful incentives that performance metrics create shouldn’t be taken lightly. The best metrics show how any job contributes to the larger mission, what is expected of that job, and how well the person who holds it is doing. They also help establish a culture of accountability.
The quantification of performance can mobilize the staff and spur competition among employ- ees. The ubiquitous “fund-raising thermometer,” to give just one example, is a classic, effective motivational tool. Many national organizations— especially participatory groups like the Boy Scouts of America, Teach for America, and the Special Olympics—make use of statistical indi- cators about their membership or client base to spark friendly competition among local chapters. “We use this information to appeal to the com- petitive spirit in our field people,” the director of one large youth organization explains candidly. “We want the staff in Texas to get rankled when the staff in New Mexico brings in more people than they do.” Such concrete measures of success are an important marketing tool for attracting donors and building public support. Many foundations now demand to see the results of their invest- ments in nonprofit organizations and will finance only those that can give them detailed answers. Increasingly, these funders are not satisfied with answers that amount to little more than laundry lists of activities. “We’re not grant makers; we’re change makers,” says a senior official of the Kellogg Foundation. To individual donors, focused performance measures communicate a businesslike attitude and a high degree of competence. Many nonprofit organizations, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the American Cancer Society, have successfully used well-publicized performance targets to influence public opinion and the policy agenda of government.
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