Terms for Nonprofits Defined

As you may know, there are several different terms used to describe “nonprofity” types of organizations: 

• Nonprofit

• Not-for-profit

• Charity

• Non-governmental Organization (NGO)

• For-purpose Organization 

Is there a difference between these terms, or are these all terms that essentially mean the same thing? Do the different terms mean that the organization operates differently?

Here’s what we’ve uncovered to clarify any confusion around the type of entity.

There IS a Difference Between the Terms Nonprofit and Not-for-Profit 

When we first started writing this article we thought that “nonprofit” and “not-for-profit” were simply two terms that were used colloquially for the same type of organization. While that’s true, we also learned that there are some important distinctions between these two entities. 

To begin with, there are some regional differences in terms of laws and tax implications. In the US, a nonprofit does not distribute any profits from its activities to shareholders or owners. Instead, it uses its funds to further its mission or cover the costs of running the organization.

A nonprofit qualifies for tax-exempt status in the US and must have a purpose to serve the public good or further a social cause. Nonprofits must make their operational information public, allowing donors to see exactly how they use their funds. Donors are allowed to take a tax deduction on their contributions to nonprofits.

A US-based not-for-profit also doesn’t return profits to owners and puts the funds back into running the organization. A key difference is that the not-for-profit doesn’t have to operate for the public good. It could exist simply to serve its members, such as a sports club or social club. Not-for-profits must apply for tax-exempt status, and donors can’t claim a tax deduction for their contributions. Not-for-profits don’t have paid staff; they are run by volunteers. Additionally, while nonprofits may have a separate legal entity, not-for-profits can’t. 

Australia commonly uses the term not-for-profit with a similar setup to US nonprofits. These organizations can profit as long as the funds go back into the organization. They may be run by a mixture of paid staff and volunteers. Any spending, such as on staff salaries, building costs or projects, is tightly regulated and must be congruent with the organization’s mission. There is crossover in Australia, where some not-for-profits may also be considered a charity or an NGO.

What about Charities?

People often use “charity” as a catch-all, meaning “doing good.” Charity refers to a specific type of organization, depending on the regional definition.

As a general rule, all charities are non-profits (or not-for-profits), but not all nonprofits are charities. In the US, a charity has some precise definitions via the IRS, with multiple examples tried in court to declare the organization a charity. Examples include:

“Relief of the poor and distressed or of the underprivileged; advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erection or maintenance of public buildings, monuments or works; lessening of the burdens of government; and promotion of social welfare by organizations designed to accomplish any of the above purposes, or (i) to lessen neighborhood tensions; (ii) to eliminate prejudice and discrimination; (iii) to defend human and civil rights secured by law; or (iv) to combat community deterioration and juvenile delinquency.”

Australia is similar in that an organization can only be a charity if it meets criteria for “charitable purposes” set out under the law. There are twelve broad charitable purpose categories, and the organization must fall under one of them. 

Charitable status matters for the terms of taxation rules. This truth is fairly common across multiple countries, however, you’d need to know the specific requirements of your own state or country. (In the US, the organization must first be recognized as a charity at a state level before the IRS will consider it.)

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

NGOs or “non-governmental organizations” originated from the charter of the newly formed United Nations back in 1945. These are entities that operate independently of government influence, although some may apply and qualify for government funding.

In the US, there are around 1.5 million NGOs, with many also operating internationally. These organizations undertake various activities, including political advocacy and social and environmental issues. They are often integral elements of creating positive changes in communities.

NGOs can apply to be exempt from state and federal taxation, although not all qualify for charitable status. NGOs organized for political purposes receive limited tax exemptions. 

In Australia, NGOs are not-for-profit organizations set up independently of government influence. Most of the time, an NGO deals with large, widespread issues. For example, organizations that provide disaster relief or combat human trafficking. On the other hand, not-for-profit organizations often address smaller-scale issues within communities.

For-Purpose Organizations

“For-purpose” organization is a term adopted worldwide to describe an entity that puts its mission or purpose over and above the organization itself. This definition from Australia says:

"For-purpose organisations are a collection of people who have come together because they share a common goal for society. Using archetypes to communicate your values allows your audience to see themselves reflected in you, to understand you and to make a choice to partner with you."

A for-purpose organization could be an NGO, charity, nonprofit, not-for-profit or for-profit. For-profits that fall into this category likely have a social or environmental mission in addition to their pursuit of profit. The social mission is embedded across the business into production processes, products, culture, relationships with employees, suppliers and customers. The worldwide movement of B Corporations is a great example of for-purpose businesses.

Conclusion

In social and nonprofit work, you’ll come across many different types of organizations. Terms can mean slightly different things in different regions, although commonly, they overlap with one another.

If you understand these different terms, you can understand how each organization operates within its service area.

Tools and Tips for Effective Nonprofit Performance Management

How do you approach performance management in your nonprofit organization?

Many nonprofits find performance management to be challenging. You’ve got a lot on your plates, often spread among a few staff, and performance management can seem like another task on a long list.

However, it’s a critically  important task. When done effectively, performance management strengthens the organization’s culture and ensures that the individuals within it have what they need to succeed.

We encourage all nonprofits to have a robust performance management process as part of their broader strategic efforts. Here are our tools and tips for making it happen.

What is Performance Management?

Performance management is an ongoing process of supporting and developing your team members regarding their performance. It should always align with organizational goals so that you can link individual performance to organizational outcomes.

There are three critical things to keep in mind about performance management.

First, the performance management process should help the supervisor and staff member strengthen their working relationship. This is key. As you may know, the number one reason people leave their jobs is because of a poor working relationship with their boss. 

Second, effective performance management must be a regularly implemented process. It is not a once-a-year review. Annual performance appraisals are just one part of a far broader performance management effort. The best systems ensure that the team member always knows how they’re doing so that their annual appraisal isn’t a surprise. (We outlined how we manage performance at Mission Met here).

Third, performance management is not a one-way process where the staff member takes guidance and direction from the supervisor. Rather, it should be about an employee taking their own professional development into their own hands, self-evaluating themselves, and leaning on the supervisor for guidance. While, of course, the supervisor ultimately does provide an evaluation, the entire process should be driven by the employee’s efforts. In this way, your staff members will be leading their own development and, importantly, the supervisor isn’t tasked with such a large load of evaluations. 

How Do You Measure Performance?

How you measure performance should be unique to your organization. There are multiple ways to measure, so it’s essential to start by choosing metrics that make sense for your people and wider organizational goals.

One vital question is, what does “performance” mean in the context of your organization? What are key metrics that indicate your team is meeting your performance goals? How do you define results from your activities that show meaningful, measurable, and sustainable activity? Should you include metrics that further your mission or ensure your organization’s longevity?

Nonprofits are unique because they answer to board members, donors, and other key stakeholders, rather than company owners or shareholders. They’re mission-driven rather than profit-driven, yet roles such as the executive director still require financial measures.

Nonprofits are mission-driven rather than profit-driven, but performance management is still key.

The metrics you choose should demonstrate how the individual contributes to organizational goals. You can use different metrics, including objective data, where the data provides the basis of the evaluation, or subjective measures, where someone (or the board) evaluates based on what they’ve seen.

As a general rule, objective KPIs tend to be more impactful. They help to demonstrate a fair, balanced approach to performance. It’s simple to measure if an executive director aims to bring in 20% more funding this year than last year. Either they achieved that goal, or they didn’t.

On the other hand, subjective measures such as rating someone on how well you think they communicate or engage with stakeholders may be considered unfair. A subjective measure can be prone to bias during evaluation, especially if there are personality clashes or if perhaps the person evaluating hasn’t spent a lot of time with the team member.

If you let data tell the story, both the staff member and the supervisor will have clarity regarding what the objective is.

What Makes Performance Management Effective?

We can share a few tips about effective performance management in a broad sense:

1. The system is set up so that everyone knows the expectations, how managers evaluate them, and how those KPIs link with critical organizational goals. It is fair and accurate to all those it impacts.

2. As stated earlier, the employee should drive the process for their own development and self-evaluation. 

3. The KPIs directly impact vital organizational goals. Every KPI should have a clear purpose and relevance to your organization to be effective.

4. The performance management system should be an ongoing process, providing regular feedback. It should be efficient and simple when put in place -- you don’t want it to be something that takes inordinate amounts of time to manage.

5. The system should involve formal development, mentoring, or coaching. The idea is that you want your people to succeed and to keep delivering at a higher level.

As Bloomerang put it: "It will undoubtedly mean a little more work upfront, first identifying performance measures and making employees aware of expectations. However, once it gets rolling, real-time nonprofit performance management can pay proverbial dividends by exceeding organizational targets and, hopefully, help create space on the director's plate for new possibilities and opportunities."

How Are Performance Management and Strategic Planning Linked?

Performance management should be part of your broader strategic planning activities. We frequently talk about how strategic planning should involve a cycle of evaluation and development, and performance management should be the same.

Your performance management activities should directly feed into strategy. You should base your individual KPIs on what you want to achieve strategically. A once-per-year performance evaluation isn’t any more effective than having a retreat to create a strategic plan and never looking at it again.

Nonprofits can benefit from adopting a cyclical approach to performance alongside strategy. To make it even more impactful, take a collaborative approach, engaging team members in the process.

We like this extract from SHRM: "As for goal setting, it can be a collaborative exercise. Meet in the middle and agree on terms aligned with organization-wide and team-level strategic priorities.” Having a strategic plan in place will be the best tool to help with goal setting.

When performance management is a frequent exercise, it helps you:

• Monitor your results and check on progress toward goals.

• Be proactive. Sometimes things have changed since goal-setting, and you might need to alter your strategy mid-way through.

• Allocate resources. For example, perhaps a metric is lagging because there simply aren’t enough resources focused on it.

• Keep stakeholders informed of progress.

What Tools Can Help?

There are a range of tools out there that can help with performance management, depending on your needs. Some nonprofits still go for some type of file, either paper-based or via a spreadsheet tool such as Excel. We adopt a lot of ours from the forms found at Manager-Tools.

There are also some performance management tools available in cloud-based software form. We always suggest that if you opt for purpose-built software, you look for something that is the “right size” for your organization. Some tools will be too big and feature-rich. Look for something that meets your must-have requirements without going overboard. Some examples include Monday.com, Leapsome, and Ascender. 

We covered suggestions for choosing software and how technology can help you gather data on performance here.

Conclusion

Performance management is an essential task for nonprofits so that you can directly attribute an individual's contributions to overall goals. This process helps you keep activities on track and ensure that the work your team members do is meaningful.

A key to performance management success is not a once-per-year evaluation activity. It must be a regular task where team members take the lead on their own development and get support from their supervisor. There shouldn’t be surprises at annual appraisals.

Lastly, performance management should go hand-in-hand with your strategic plan. It should be a meaningful exercise that supports strategy rather than a checkbox activity.

How to Champion Your Strategic Plan: A Case Study About Network of Community Ministries

As a result of their strategic planning work, Network of Community Ministries had the following results:

• They successfully implemented a virtual performance module to measure staff effectiveness.

• They created a development committee with staff, board members, and a stakeholder representative.

• They are working on formalizing the process of recruiting and maintaining volunteers.

• They are creating a board governance model, including training and documenting their processes for the board.

• They have streamlined their approach for communicating with stakeholders, including relevant information, collecting feedback, and facilitating program referrals. 

• They implemented plans for their new building expansion. This included weaning off of Covid-related programming and moving operations into their new building. 

• The marketing committee has set the cadence of developing quarterly goals for communicating with donors, utilizing SEO, and updating their website. 

Guided by their belief in helping the community, Network of Community Ministries has served Dallas County for 37 years. The nonprofit provides a vast number of programs and services to assist families in need in the community, like emergency services, seniors’ assistance, stabilization programs, youth programs, and a food pantry. In its lifetime, Network has benefited over 400,000 people’s lives, but they are always eager to expand programs in order to serve those in need. 

“OUR MISSION IS TO CARE, COACH, AND EMPOWER OUR NEIGHBORS IN NEED AS THEY SEEK AN IMPROVED QUALITY OF LIFE.”

Where They Were

Before Fall 2020, Director of Programs Laurel Stanley-Abihabib had never completed a strategic plan, and the organization was not exactly enthusiastic about it. Many team members had a similar experience with strategic planning in their past work experience: it took time, it took money, and it rarely turned out how it was supposed to. 

However, Network of Community Ministries was about to make some major advances. The nonprofit had just acquired a new 50,000 square foot building, one that was four times the size of their previous space. They planned to drastically increase program capacity and engage in a $5.5 million capital campaign to fund the move. 

Big changes were on the horizon, and Network needed all hands on deck and a strategy.

The Help They Needed

For Network of Community Ministries to successfully implement a plan, they needed a mindset shift to believe that strategic planning was vital to their organization and that the process can be celebratory instead of dull and ineffectual. 

When Network began strategic planning, there was a lot that was changing within the organization. Therefore, what got the organization to shift their mindset around strategic planning was the idea that change is needed and can provide opportunities for incredible growth. Their staff knew that big things would be expected of them to maintain their new location, and strategic planning was another responsibility expected of them to foster success. 

Stanley-Abihabib and CEO Cindy Shafer were placed at the helm of the planning ship as the overall strategic planning co-champions. According to Stanley-Abihabib, overall champions need to get the team dedicated to the process by having enthusiasm and energy. The co-champions created a dynamic in which Shafer offers background support and Stanley-Abihabib serves as the logistics coordinator and the self-described “reminder of all the things.”

Where They Are Now

Since beginning their strategic planning process, the co-champions continue to bring enthusiasm to the effort and keep measurement on track. Like many co-champions, Shafer and Stanley-Abihabib have defined their roles and responsibilities based on their personal skills. As CEO, Shafer is able to serve as a high-level supporter of the process, while Stanley-Abihabib is more tactical in executing their goals. 

As a champion, Stanley-Abihabib organizes and plans meetings and serves as support for Focus Area champions. 

They meet quarterly to review goals, due dates, and give updates on their work. Meanwhile, the champions of each Focus Area have achieved autonomy to set their own meeting schedules with their team. Each team measures their own progress quarterly and meets monthly, and Stanley-Abihabib regularly checks in to keep their mind on the plan. 

Further, the strategic process is mentioned at every bi-weekly staff meeting. When serving such a large geographical area, it’s easy to let strategic planning fall onto the backburner. However, champions serve as a cheerleader to keep momentum going. 

Technology has also become a notable aspect of their planning process. The Focus Area teams independently measure their plan within Mission Met Center, their strategic planning software. They’re also able to share their plan with the board via the software, which has allowed them to communicate better with their board members. Stanley-Abihabib believes that the intuitive and simple software has helped her team track progress, send email reminders, while also providing strategic planning guidance along the way. 

What’s changed most notably is Network of Community Ministries' attitude towards their strategic planning process. Their staff have motivated each other by celebrating their success; therefore, Stanley-Abihabib arranged an activity in which Focus Area teams produced videos of what work they had done on the strategic plan in the past six months and noted what they looked forward to doing in the next six months. The organization gathered to watch the final product, socialize, and celebrate their progress together. 

Network plans to continue this tradition every six months. The focus area teams are determined to make the next video on their own, hoping that they will surprise the champions with some of the comments and success stories.

Laurel Stanley-Abihabib believes that the organization has been successful at strategic planning because the team cares about their mission. 

“ON BAD DAYS, FOR INSTANCE, WHEN SOMEONE IN THE COMMUNITY COMES IN AND IS BEING UNPLEASANT WITH THE RECEPTIONIST, WE OFTENTIMES TURN TO OUR MISSION AND VISION STATEMENTS TO REMIND US OF WHY WE DO THIS WORK.”

Due to the nature of their work, they are regularly reminded that their community—where the majority falls below the poverty line—struggles to survive and needs the programs and services that Network provides. The community creates the perspective they need to put in the work, and their strong guiding compass serves as a reminder as to what they have to do to help their community.

Strategic planning has provided Stanley-Abihabib the structure to be an effective leader and has projected Network of Community Ministries into a new era of growth, success, and teamwork. And Stanley-Abihabib hasn’t heard a grumbling about strategic planning, since. 

Follow This Simple Formula for Your Mission and Vision Statements

This article was originally posted on Nonprofit Pro.

Are you concerned that your mission or vision statements aren’t aligning with your organization? Or, maybe you don’t have clearly defined statements because you don’t know where to start?

Your nonprofit has its own identity, and it’s likely that you want to tell your whole story to your stakeholders. However, when nonprofits wrap everything that the organization is about into its mission and vision statements, a lot of the power and decision-making value is lost in these lofty and winding statements. 

It’s important to create statements that guide decision-making, inspire your team and attract stakeholders — all in a way that is easy to communicate and remember. 

This may seem like quite a feat, and perhaps you’ve been working on your statements for quite some time. However, be assured that there are no perfectly worded mission or vision statements. Don’t worry about perfection because you can always come back and do some wordsmithing. 

Defining Missions and Visions

Your mission and vision statements are your core guiding statements, and funders often require them to consider whether you’re a good match for their priorities. 

Based on years of learning from organizations, I’ve defined mission and vision statements as the following: 

• Mission Statement: One succinct and somewhat timeless sentence that states what your organization does and for whom 

• Vision Statement: One succinct, inspirational, and somewhat timeless sentence that describes what the world will look like when your organization succeeds at its mission

There are two things to note about how your statements function. Firstly, you may have noticed that each statement is limited to one sentence. Simplifying your statements will make them easier to remember, focus your team and serve as a filter for decision-making. Secondly, your statements should have a cause-and-effect relationship. You want to be able to say that “If we succeed at our mission, then our vision is more likely to happen.” 

Here are some real-life examples:

Make-a-Wish

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)

Mission Statement*

We grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions.

To provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.

Vision Statement

That people everywhere will share the power of a wish.

That the United States is a humane community in which all animals are treated with respect and kindness.

*Words that are bold describe what the organization does, and words in italics describe the subjects/persons that are of focus.

Need More Detail?

Sometimes, a succinct mission statement can feel too limiting for even the most focused of organizations. In that instance, I recommend that you supplement your mission and vision with a brief bulleted list to provide a little more depth.

For example, here’s the mission and vision of Good Center Gracenter, which added an additional section to its mission statement to be featured in a few publications. It looks something like this: 

“To help women without resources break free from drug and alcohol addiction and create a hopeful future for themselves and others. 

We do this by offering: 

Transitional housing for women that provides a safe, supportive community incorporating the 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in order to promote peace and harmony in their lives.

• Recovery mentoring and the promotion of whole-person wellness.

• Paths to higher education, skill-building, and sustainable employment.

• Opportunities to practice the principles of restorative justice by taking responsibility for one’s actions and making amends that can lead to a transformation of people, relationships, and community.”

How to Do This Exercise With Your Team

What’s most important is how to put this into practice with your team.

Engaging your team members in your mission and vision statements is an excellent way to keep them involved with the process. They serve as auditors for the organization. At your next staff meeting, I recommend you ask, “What does our organization do? Who does our organization serve? And what will our community/world look like when our organization succeeds?”

Once you’ve gotten your staff’s input, appoint a small committee to draft your mission and vision statements. This is where you use the mission and vision formula I provided. 

Now that your committee has a solid draft, it’ll present it to the staff and board for feedback. Go through these steps as much as needed until you’ve finalized your mission and vision. Remember, each organization is unique, and its mission and vision statements will be just as unique and nuanced.

How Mission Met Manages Performance

“Leaders become great not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.” — John Maxwell

What I’m about to say should come as no surprise to nonprofit executive directors: It’s important to support your team in their work. While we’ll soon post about the basics of performance management, in this article we explain how we approach it at Mission Met.

Fostering a culture that supports further growth and development with all of our team members is critical. And, our performance management processes are central to that effort.

The combination of assisting our team with their current job responsibilities while also encouraging their personal and professional growth results in the following benefits:

• Improves work engagement

• Contributes to a positive culture of support, learning, and development

• Helps retain team members

Performance management is a topic on which many executive directors are seeking information. Based on my own conversations with customers and recent articles for the nonprofit sector (such as the Great Resignation and employee retention), how to manage performance and keep talented team members is top of mind for leaders of nonprofits.

I’d like to share some of our company’s practices and resources in hopes that this information will be valuable for your nonprofit’s performance management processes.

Twice-Weekly Team Standup

Since our team works remotely, we’ve found it’s important to have a cadence of regular check-ins. Twice a week, our entire team gets together to each share about what they are doing. In particular they answer these three questions:

• What has been your focus recently?

• What are you plan to work in the next day or two?

• Are you blocked on a project or task?

Each team member takes 2 to 3 minutes at most to review their work.

This meeting tends to be task-focused and less about strategy. We keep it to 30 minutes and remind each other that it is not a meeting to sift through the comprehensive list of what everyone has on their plate. It’s only to discuss the priorities of the week and to remove any barriers that might be in the way of that work. This helps all team members prioritize their work alongside others and have a sense of what the team is accomplishing. 

Staff ONE-ON-ONEs

We try to keep our meeting frequency across our team to a minimum. The common meme of “this meeting could have been an email” is regularly shared between employees. However, 1:1 meetings with staff and their supervisors is a staple with our team. They are prioritized and rarely canceled.

We’ve found that the weekly 1:1 meeting is an important, dedicated time (typically 30 minutes) for open-ended conversations. This meeting is where strong relationships are formed via coaching and mentorship (and the occasional venting).

Suggestions for this type of meeting include the following:

• Follow a loose structure, more so than a set agenda

• Managers typically start by asking what the employee would like to discuss

• Create a shared document (could be a doc or in a performance management tool) where you both can enter any topics to be discussed. This is helpful so topics aren’t forgotten.

We’ve written on tips for better employee engagement, and the 1:1 meeting exemplifies many of the tips from that article such as keeping communication lines open, providing regular feedback and support, reinforcing the organization’s values, and celebrating success.

If you need help developing more effective tools for employee engagement at your nonprofit, we recommend reviewing the work of Manager Tools and in particular their work on 1:1s.

Strategy

If your nonprofit has followed our strategic planning method, the CAPE Cycle, you should be a pro at developing and executing your strategy with goals that support focus areas and priorities.

Encouraging engagement from all team members during the development and execution phases of your strategic plan will make your goals more achievable because everyone is a stakeholder and wants to see the success of the plan.

The team at Mission Met creates a strategic plan for our company and we follow our same guidance for meetings about strategy that we provide to our customers. We recommend a monthly champions meeting, a quarterly team meeting, and a strategy development meeting (that includes separate times for leadership and the entire team to provide insights.)

Monthly Meeting

• Who attends? The co-champions of the plan meet monthly to review the team’s performance. 

• What are the key objectives? Champions should get a snapshot of goal completion timelines and review the team’s performance. Champions share their observations and they collectively develop a list of what needs to be shared with the team prior to the next quarterly meeting (such as important dates, reminders, celebrations of success, and agenda for the next meeting.)

Quarterly Meeting

• Who attends? The entire team meets quarterly to review the plan. 

• What are the key objectives? Each team member walks away from this meeting with a clear understanding of the goals they will work toward in the next quarter and any questions regarding the plan have been answered.

Annual Strategy Development

This meeting is similar to an annual retreat for nonprofits. 

• Who attends? The first session is for leadership. A second session is for the entire team.

• What are the key objectives? The leadership reviews feedback from their team and they set strategic priorities for the next year. The entire team helps to develop the goals for each priority.

Software

Executive directors often ask us for suggestions about how to use Mission Met Center as a performance management tool. For that reason, we developed a way for nonprofits to host individual plans for all of their team members (in addition to their overall strategic plan). 

Best practices for hosting individual plans include the following:

• Managers are administrators on their team members' plans.

• Work together to populate the focus areas, goals, and action items. (Some of these items for an individual might overlap with the organization’s strategic plan but in many cases, separate focus areas and goals are documented.)

• The team member regularly tracks their updates/progress and managers can review in times of check-ins or evaluations.

• Don’t be afraid to put personal goals (health, personal coaching and development, travel, etc.) as each team member has their own life pursuits.

This is a great way for managers to encourage both professional and personal growth as we’ve seen individual plans include personal goals such as pursuing further education, work/life balance, and improving upon certain skills that are helpful in both the workplace and life (time management, interpersonal communication, etc.).

Employee Handbook

The employee handbook is a valuable resource for all types of organizations and employee level status and title (new hires, long-term employee, managers, part time, volunteer, interns, etc.). It documents all policies and procedures. It’s also a great communication tool for emphasizing your organization’s mission, vision, values, and practices.

We created our employee handbook with the help of a template from Workable.

We tailored the employee handbook template to fit our needs and continue to develop it as our team grows and changes. It is a living, breathing document that needs to be regularly visited. Additionally, we include our stakeholders, our team members, to contribute their ideas to the employee handbook. You want their input when you’re creating any policy or procedure that involves them. This helps enforce shared ownership of the culture and improvement of our company.

INTERNS: DAILY JOURNALING

It’s vital that you don’t forget about your interns! After all, they are working with your nonprofit to gain experience and part of that experience is learning about what’s expected of them, how they will be evaluated, and opportunities for future growth.

Just as you should be clarifying the workplace policies that apply to your interns, you should also consider how to manage their performance. We’ve implemented a daily journal project for all interns to document their work. 

This journal activity allows them to reflect on the scope of their projects through daily updates. 

Prompts we encourage in the journal for specific projects include the following:

• What is working?

• What is not working?

• What is something they could do differently?

The journal affords an intern time to reflect on their projects weekly. It also allows the intern managers to review the entries prior to meetings so they are most prepared for the conversations. The journal also provides us with documentation after an intern completes their work with us in the event we need to revisit any of the work.

Conclusion

Your performance management policies and procedures can contribute to a positive culture at your nonprofit. We know our work has contributed greatly to ours. Similar to a strategic plan, begin by writing your workplace values and what you think it will take you to get there. Make those items your goals and work towards achieving them. 

As outlined in this article, your performance management strategy can include a combination of meetings, documentation, processes, and online tools. Don’t forget to solicit feedback from your team along the way as this will continue to improve team relationships and show that you value their input.

7 Tips For Hiring Your Capital Campaign Consultant

Capital campaigns can be one of the most impactful activities to help your nonprofit mission.

These targeted fundraising efforts take place over time and take considerable planning and effort to be successful. We’ve found that capital campaigns are often a high priority in strategic plans for organizations.

Capital campaigns are unique projects and can be massive, spanning multiple years. For example, if you’re starting a new program or constructing a new facility, those are projects that take serious planning and execution time.

For those reasons, one of the most valuable assets you can find to help guide your campaign is a Capital Campaign Consultant or consulting firm. These experts in capital campaigns can help provide expert guidance and critical accountability to ensure that your campaign hits its goal.

You could look at the work of a campaign consultant as adjacent to that of a project manager. They will provide direction and planning, manage the timeline, and help with feasibility studies or problem-solving, but they typically don’t do the solicitation of gifts, recruiting volunteers, or any other tasks that form part of the campaign.

Why hire a campaign consultant? Because having that outside expertise can be the key to keeping your goals centered and your project on track. The big question is, what should you look for when hiring one? We’ve included some of our criteria below.

Tips for Hiring a Consultant

A Capital Campaign Consultant plays a pivotal role in how your biggest fundraising campaigns play out. Choosing the right consultant should be a careful process, so we’ve compiled a few criteria that can help:

Define Your Needs First

Why are you hiring a consultant? What do you hope to achieve? By defining your needs early, you can use them to guide your hiring process.

For example, do you need someone who can:

• Conduct feasibility studies?

• Provide strategy and support?

• Identify a strategy for new revenue streams?

• Generally, strengthen your fundraising approach and processes?

You may need to engage your board and key stakeholders in this needs assessment to ensure you’ve accounted for all the needs for your capital campaigns. Your strategic plan should be a key part of this, as capital campaigns rely heavily on strategy.

Experience

You’ve identified your needs, so it’s essential to find a consultant with the experience to handle those specific areas. The best consultants have a great deal of capital campaign experience; the best consultant for you will have significant experience in your priority areas.

You need a consultant who can speak with authority backed by experience. They’ve seen all sorts of different campaigns and even experienced some failures. Importantly, they bring multiple valuable learning experiences to the table.

Today, most capital campaigns rely on fundraising/donor prospecting software. Make sure that your consultant is adept at using the software and can provide you and your team with the necessary guidance.

Great consultants are also adept at managing people. They can help herd differing viewpoints so that everyone is heading in the same overall direction. The best consultants have people wanting to listen to what they have to say.

Accessibility

Consider how accessible the consultant is. Are they remote-only? Can they come to your office regularly? Will they work as a mix of remote and in-person consultations? How quickly or easily are they available to you?

You should determine the mode and level of help you expect to find a consultant who is a match for those needs. If you need someone who will come into your office a few days a month, you may need to narrow the geographic region of your search. If remote is acceptable, then you might even look worldwide for the best possible fit.

Discipline

Capable consultants are all about deadlines and accountability, which can be hugely valuable for nonprofits juggling multiple tasks. Suppose your organization frequently struggles with sticking to timelines or getting distracted by ancillary tasks. In that case, you want a highly disciplined consultant and not afraid to hold people accountable.

At the same time, you want a highly-organized consultant, so they’re not scheduling meetings on short notice and giving you no time to prepare. You should know precisely what you need to be working on and what to expect from your meetings.

Flexibility

Planning and campaign roadmaps are valuable tools to keep your capital campaigns on track, but what happens with large projects that span months or years? Over such a long period, you’ll face at least one struggle that doesn’t go according to plan. In that instance, you’ll need to adapt and make adjustments.

Good consultants know this and are flexible in their approach. While they may be disciplined in terms of timelines, they’re not so rigid that they can’t see when a plan needs adjusting to suit the current realities of the campaign.

Cost

When hiring a Capital Campaign Consultant, the cost will always be a factor for prudent nonprofits. Hiring a consultant is an investment, using the limited funds you have for this purpose. You need a realistic budget for finding a consultant.

According to Campaign Counsel, the cost can run from a few hundred dollars a month to around $30,000 per month. This varies greatly across the wide range of nonprofit sizes and campaign goals. At the high end, you get full-service, on-site campaign management. If you hire from outside of your direct area, you can also expect to pay travel costs if you want the consultant on-site.

When we talk about cost, it’s also beneficial to mention the old adage, “You get what you pay for.” Yes, consultants can be expensive. By all means, do your due diligence and look into their past projects and testimonials. On the other hand, cheap or pro bono consultants may not have the experience you require or the time to devote to making your capital campaign a success. After all, they’re probably working additional jobs to pay their bills!

Look at the cost in terms of ROI (return on investment). A consultant is an investment, and if “getting what you pay for” means a wildly successful capital campaign, you will get your money’s worth.

Fit with Your Organization

The right consultant should be a good fit for your organization's overall culture. You’re going to spend a lot of time working together, so your team and the consultant should generally get along well.

At the same time, the consultant should inspire action and help give your team the confidence and courage to make big decisions. You should feel supported, and that you’re getting advice born from experience. The consultant should help you to work through scenarios and feel confident in your course of action.

You’ll work closely with a Capital Campaign Consultant, so you should ensure they’re a good “fit” for your organization

Questions to Ask When Prospecting for a Consultant

Here are some sample questions that you might ask to help narrow down your choice of Capital Campaign Consultant:

1. Have you worked with organizations previously that were facing similar challenges? You should explain some of the challenges you anticipate and ask if the consultant has dealt with similar issues before.

2. Can you detail previous campaigns you have conducted? You’re looking for genuinely detailed answers. Sometimes a person giving the presentation for a consulting firm wasn’t deeply involved in previous campaigns.

3. What sort of fund development / donor prospecting software do you use? Will you be able to guide us in its use?

4. Have you worked with organizations with similar staffing and boards?

5. How do you think you’d start the campaign process with us? You want a description of how they’d get started to demonstrate they’ve already done some homework on your organization.

6. Do they know your local landscape and have experience serving nonprofits in your sector?

7. How do they provide their service? You’re looking for methods that will be a good fit for your organization.

Conclusion

Capital campaigns are a big investment of time and money for your organization, so finding the right consultant to help guide you through the campaign can make a huge difference in your overall results.

Capital campaign consultants are worth the investment when you find the right one who fits well with your organization. The tips we’ve listed above will help you identify your needs and determine some essential criteria before choosing.

Choosing the right consultant will take careful consideration and due diligence. However, once you find them, you’ll enjoy the confidence and strategic direction that their experience brings.

The Power of Nonprofit Strategy

When one of your board members, funders, or staff members suggests something about strategic planning, you wonder to yourself, “why should we do it?”. This article lays out a number of reasons why organizations that build strategic planning into their operational DNA are more successful than peer organizations.

What am I losing If my Nonprofit doesn’t have a Strategic Plan?

If you’re a leader of a nonprofit without a strategic plan then you’re potentially missing out on a tremendous amount of both funding and opportunities to strengthen your organization.

Over and over we’ve seen how nonprofits with effective strategic plans outperform those that don’t. Among other things, executing a good plan leads to:

• Increased Funding

• Long-term Staff

• Better Board Members

• Focused Programs

• Respect for Your Leadership

As a former executive director and now a nonprofit strategic planning consultant, I’ve experienced and seen other organizations be transformed by doing this work. Let’s go into each of these benefits in more detail. 

Increased Funding

Plain and simple, when you don’t have a strategic plan then you’re losing out on a significant amount of potential funding. 

Strategic planning catalyzes your funding success in these ways:

• As you may know, fundraising is an energy game. If funders feel your team’s passion and excitement about where your organization is going, then your higher positive energy will be more attractive to more and bigger donors. A strategic plan helps your team create greater excitement and energy about your organization’s future. 

• When funders compare your nonprofit to others to see where they want to place their philanthropic dollars, having a strategic plan can help differentiate your organization as one that has its act together. 

• Every single nonprofit strategic plan that I’ve ever seen has had some sort of fund development or revenue component. As such, strategic planning helps catalyze the development of a successful funding strategy.

Here is some data that backs up the fact that strategic planning contributes to funding success. In a survey of nonprofit leaders regarding the links between strategic planning and fundraising, we found that:

• 86% of respondents said that having a strategic plan had a positive impact on generating revenue (grants, appealing to donors, earned income, events, etc.).

• Further, respondents said that, on average, between 36% and 45% of their nonprofit’s annual revenue can be attributed to the presence of a strategic plan. (A sample $500,000 nonprofit would generate a whopping $180,000 and $225,000 more each year with a strategic plan in place.)

• As indicated in the chart below, respondents that regularly reviewed, revised, and measured their strategic plan were over six times (58% vs. 9%) more likely to say that their strategic plan helps their nonprofit generate revenue.

In addition to the numbers, we have several success stories of nonprofits that have benefited financially from their planning work. One example is the Migrant Clinicians Network, whose ongoing strategic work helped give noted philanthropist, MacKenzie Scott, the confidence to provide them with a $5M unrestricted grant, effectively doubling their annual budget. 

Bottom line: creating and implementing a strategic plan provides a fantastic return on your investment. 

(If you ‘d like to learn more about how having a strategic plan will help you raise more funds, check out one of our other blog articles where we go into this topic in more depth.)

Long-term Staff

Not only is your fundraising likely suffering by not having a strategic plan, you’re also potentially losing money due to a higher than necessary staff turnover. 

It’s been estimated that losing an employee costs an organization anywhere between 1.5-2 times a person’s salary. So, when you lose a staff member making $75,0oo/year, you’re also losing somewhere between $112,500 and $150,000 in recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, and morale costs. That’s money that you’d probably like to spend on programs.

Strategic planning can significantly help reduce staff turnover. Your strategic plan can include priorities and goals around staff culture, performance management, compensation, or any number of topics that will help your staff want to stick around. 

Further, the very act of creating and implementing a strategic plan can increase staff engagement. My friend and colleague, Scott Winter, once said to me, “People support that which they help create.” When you engage your staff in the strategic process, then they become more invested and will be more likely to want to be a part of your nonprofit for the long term. 

One of our customers, the Network of Community Ministries, leverages their strategic plan to celebrate their staff’s achievements. Every six months, strategic planning leaders produce videos explaining the progress they’ve made on their plan. The whole organization gathers to watch the video messages and celebrate their growth. 

In other words, your strategic planning process can help you create an organization with an attractive staff culture where people want to stay. 

Better Board Members

Success attracts success. If you want to attract – and keep – the best board members then having a strategic plan can help significantly. 

Board members typically come from organizations and businesses where the habit of creating and executing a strategic plan are second nature. They’ll bring that same expectation to their service on your board. Often you’ll find that board members are the ones most interested in the strategic planning process. 

I was recently talking to a leader of an organization that went to a “board match” event in an attempt to recruit new people to their board. She said that, without question, the one thing that most of the potential board members were most impressed by was the organization’s strategic plan and her ability to discuss it. 

Focused Programs

If you’re like many nonprofit leaders, you and your team struggle with mission creep. There are so many problems that you’d like to solve and it can be hard to stay focused. 

Of course, when you try to do everything then you may not do anything well. And it makes it harder to tell a clear and coherent story to your funders and stakeholders. 

With a strategic plan you can help you and your team focus on those programs that are your strengths and slowly remove those programs that are distracting and a drain on resources. 

One of our customers, Vida Verde Nature Education, created a simple strategic plan with us during the early years of their organization. In that plan they reinforced their commitment to provide just one program that they could excel at, leading to a transformational impact on those they serve. Further, their singular focus on one program helped them tell an easy-to-understand story to their funders that led them to exceed their fundraising goals year-after-year. It wasn’t until about fifteen years into their existence that they began creating a second program. 

Respect for Your Leadership

As a nonprofit leader it’s possible that you’re experiencing burnout, addressing only the urgent, seeing too many emails in your inbox, and having staff working on disparate projects without clear priorities. That sort of situation can hurt your team’s perspective of your capability as a leader. 

The success of your organization is directly related to the effectiveness of your leadership. And a key element of your effective leadership is being able to capture and communicate a compelling vision and strategy for your organization. A strategic plan is where your vision and strategy lives. The confidence that your staff and board has in your leadership is stronger when they know you have a plan. 

But having a plan isn’t enough. You’ll be able to demonstrate your leadership when you make sure that the plan is well-executed. When you don’t have a plan and process for executing it then you’re losing out on a great opportunity to provide strong leadership to your team. 

Summary

We’re dedicated to helping nonprofit leaders create and execute strategic plans, and we made that choice because we have repeatedly seen how strategic planning can transform the success of a nonprofit and its leaders. To not have a plan – or to have a plan but not use it – guarantees that you’ll miss out on funding and other opportunities that can transform your nonprofit’s impact.

If your nonprofit is ready to create a more significant impact via strategic planning, then Mission Met can help you start your journey. You can learn more about our strategic planning approach and get access to many resources that will help you along the way, or check out some of the services we offer. 

Technology Tools of the Nonprofit Trade

Technology for nonprofits has transformed how we operate.

There’s no denying that today’s world is faster than ever. Supporting your organization’s mission hinges on keeping up and hopefully finding an edge where you can get ahead of the game.

When you consider the complexity of tasks that you have to address as a nonprofit leader, it raises the question, how can your organization operate more productively? Technology tools can be your secret to success, from efficient communication to finding the right people at the right time.

With that said, you have a lot of options! We’re here to help you uncover some of the best tools to help your nonprofit improve productivity and support your overall mission. Below are some of our favorite tools to keep in mind.

CRM Solutions

CRM (Constituent Relationship Management) systems help you manage your interactions with constituents, analyze key data, and improve your service and relationships. It provides a one-stop shop for managing your contacts, donors, and other supporters.

One of the best advantages of a CRM is that it will help you manage all of your donor data in one place. It becomes challenging to manage data when you experience a system of disparate spreadsheets where your information is in separate areas. You’ll appreciate how easy it is to have all of your data in one place with the right CRM. A centralized view helps you conduct better analysis and utilize that data for maximum impact.

Features to Consider

One thing you’ll find when you shop for any new technology is that you can rapidly feel overwhelmed by the number of features and different options available. We recommend you begin by making a list of your “must-have” features. A list can help you narrow down your options and determine if a tool might be too big for your needs.

These are our suggestions for features to consider:

• Fundraising-specific features. You should be able to create and implement a fundraising campaign and segment your list based on how your donors give or other vital characteristics.

• Donor communications features. Your CRM should provide tools that connect you with your donors in various formats, such as email or print. You’ll want to send thank you notes, receipts, updates, new appeals, etc. If you already use an email marketing platform, it’s helpful to look for a CRM that integrates with it.

• Donor management functionality. You should be able to view fundraising tracking, communications, and other essential activities in one central location.

• Reporting and analytics features. You need to be able to spot trends promptly to take action to improve your results. An ideal system allows you to build, save, and schedule custom reports to easily access the information that matters most to you.

Possible solutions for nonprofit needs include DotDrives, NeonCRM, Salesforce (Nonprofit Success Pack), Bloomerang, and Little Green Light.

Find the right technology tools for your nonprofit to streamline your essential tasks.

Accounting Solutions

Accounting is an area that must be meticulous, but that can be a challenge as you grow. If your nonprofit uses Excel spreadsheets or something similar to manage the books, you can quickly outgrow them. It becomes difficult to keep track and ensure that spreadsheets are up-to-date.

Accounting solutions for nonprofits should focus on your unique needs for reporting, budgeting, and accountability to donors.

Here are some features to look for that can be helpful to your organization:

• Customizable reporting features. You probably have different reporting needs and you need a solution that you can easily configure to help. For example, if you receive grant funding, you need accuracy when tracking it.

• Bill paying and tracking. For nonprofits, a tool that allows you to stay on top of bills and track them is critical to the success of your mission.

• Integrations with key tools that you use. For example, taking payments online via Stripe or Paypal simplifies your workflow if there is direct integration with your accounting tool.

• Pricing tiers. One thing that is good practice across any technology you choose to use is “right-sizing” it. This term refers to choosing the solution that’s just right for your needs. Too big can be too overwhelming, while too small means you can’t meet some needs. Look for tiered pricing and functionality that scales with your needs.

• Accepting and tracking online donations. It’s helpful if your accounting software records these automatically.

• Payroll functionality. If you require payroll, it’s useful to have an accounting system to handle it.

Some possible solutions include Xero, QuickBooks, and Nonprofit Plus.

Board Portals

Board management software provides a collaborative way for your team members to share information, gain access to high-level information about your nonprofit, manage meetings, and store board-related documents.

The goal of board management software is to simplify collaboration among board members and avoid people falling out of the information loop. You’ll want cloud-based software so you know information is always up-to-date, and your board members can access it from anywhere they need to log on.

Board portals can play a pivotal role in strategic planning for your organization. A strategic planning process identifies strategies that will best enable a nonprofit to advance its mission. Ideally, as staff and the board engage in the process, they become committed to measurable goals and approve priorities for implementation. They should also commit to regularly revisiting the organization's strategies as the internal and external environments change.

Our software, Causey, is a simple and effective way to plan and execute goals to strengthen your organization.

Features to Consider

Here are some features to look for in board portals:

• The convenience of the cloud. You can access web-based software anytime, anywhere.

• Accountability. Your solution should show who is responsible for each task and include a goal progress tracker. Automated email reminders to team members with tasks due is another time-saving efficiency.

• Analytics. The solution should have reporting to track data related to your goals.

• Simplicity. Likely your board includes volunteers with various technological backgrounds. You need a solution with a simple interface that they’ll easily be able to pick up and use.

Some possible solutions include Causey, BoardEffect, Onboard.

Productivity Tools

“Productivity tools” is a broad category that covers a range of software to help you get tasks done more efficiently or streamline how you do things. Some universal tools suit any nonprofit, while others might work better for your specific mission.

We’ve compiled a few of the most helpful productivity tools below–and we use many of them at Mission Met!

Email, Document Storage, and More

You probably have email software already set up for your organization, but did you know that you can get reduced or even free licenses for software as a nonprofit? If you sign up for a free TechSoup account, you can access Google Workspace (including Google For Nonprofits), Microsoft 365, or hundreds of other low to no-cost tools.

If you're still deciding between Office 365 and Google Workspace, review all of the included tools, and think about how your team wants to work. There is no right or wrong answer, but not considering the pros and cons of what you adopt is a recipe for disaster.

Video Collaboration Tools

How many video collaboration tools have you used since the COVID pandemic began? Most people have some experience with Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, or other tools for holding meetings and collaborating at a distance.

You might already have a favorite, but make sure whatever you choose is easy to administer for you and your team. You want to create meetings, invite attendees, and manage the meeting easily.

Meeting Scheduling Tools

Emailing or calling back and forth to find a mutually convenient time for a meeting is an inefficient use of time, but most of us have done it at some point. Meeting scheduling tools are a significant time-saver, making it easy for everyone to view calendar availability and make bookings for meetings. Scheduling tools can also send automatic reminders to attendees.

Check out tools such as Calendly, Microsoft Bookings, SavvyCal, or You Can Book Me.

Screen Recording and Video Messaging

Options for screen recording or video messaging for nonprofit organizations are abundant. You might want to quickly show a new board member how the board portal software works or send a video message to your team.

If your goal is to send out quick, unedited videos, consider Zip Message or Loom as possible solutions.

If your goal is to produce a longer, higher-quality video that may be useful for months or years, you might need more editing capabilities. Tools such as ScreenFlow or Camtasia provide lightweight video editing features.

Conclusion

Above, we’ve detailed some of our favorite technology tools for nonprofits. As a starting point, we’d advise you to list the different tasks you need to do. You can use this to narrow down your options.

We also recommend checking out some key nonprofit technology resources that provide discounts and overviews of nonprofit technology. These resources include TechSoup, Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (NTEN), and Tech Impact's learning center.

Lastly, check out Causey to jump start or better structure your strategic plan. You can get a free 30-day trial here.

This Is Why Your Strategic Plan Is Failing

Picture this: You’re sitting by the window at your monthly board meeting. Through the glass, you can tell it’s a beautiful, sunny day outside. Your board and advisors have decided to create your nonprofit’s strategic plan, but there’s nothing you want to do less than spend your day—or several days—going through the planning process. 

You’re not alone if you resent the idea of strategic planning. However, a simple and effective plan is essential in determining success.

One reason your strategic plan may be failing is because your executive director won’t champion the process and promote accountability. A strong leader is essential to run an organization, but sometimes leadership is swamped with responsibilities. In strategic planning, the executive director should serve as the champion of the process. This is a more passive role, where the ED is focused on delegating roles to the team and keeping a supportive attitude. Further, another important aspect is to appoint a co-champion that will keep the executive director accountable. It’s a lot like having a workout partner that makes sure that you take no days off. 

Your perception of strategic planning may be that it’s a tedious event, but not an ongoing process. However, if you’re not regularly measuring your progress, your organization quickly becomes bored by the plan, you get distracted by other pressing issues, and the plan gets shelved. In the end, you don’t hit your goals and you lose some faith in strategic planning. Instead of just creating a strategic plan, create a strategic planning process. Your strategic plan should be cycled through annually, and the plan should be reviewed, measured, and revised quarterly or more. 

Unfortunately, many small organizations put a lot of effort into making a visually-appealing, ambitious strategic plan. However, more likely than not, this is complete overkill. Author James Hollan describes that the best strategic plans should be just two pages. Hollan’s example reflects the same two-section strategic plan that we use with our customers. The point is that a simple approach will work faster, allow more flexibility, isn’t overwhelming, be easier to communicate, and will yield more results.

If you’d like to read the full article about strategic planning, we’ve been featured on NonProfit PRO. Check out more guidance that will help you overcome the reasons why your strategic plan is failing!

Why Your Nonprofit Should Embrace Data

What are your most important goals as a nonprofit leader? Do you want to further the long-term mission of your organization? Boost fundraising? Get your organization onto lists of “top places to work?”

All of the above?

Leveraging data can help you achieve all of these things, yet many nonprofit leaders are missing data-driven opportunities. While 90% of nonprofits gather data, around half aren’t using the information collected to its full potential.

Data-driven nonprofit leaders find that they can optimize how they use their limited resources. They foster a transparent environment where they can trace decision-making back to data points and where donor audiences are well-understood.

The bottom line is that data can – and should – inform the key decisions that further your mission. This article highlights the importance of reviewing data for fundraising, programs, and your nonprofit's culture.

Improve Your Fundraising

What are some of your main challenges regarding fundraising? Like other nonprofit leaders, you may struggle to find the right target audience and keep them engaged once you’ve found them. How do you discover donors who are most likely to support your cause and then maximize their donations?

Access to reliable data empowers you to reach the right donors at the right time. It helps you to understand your audience better – do they have an affinity for your cause? Do they have the ability to donate? What is happening in their lives that makes now a good or bad time to engage with them?

Good fundraising intelligence allows you to personalize your outreach to target the potential donor better. Your communication becomes much more powerful and impactful when you can mention people, pets, places, or events that mean something to the donor.

Additionally, you can identify donor interests and better customize your campaigns to grab their attention. When you’re working with a limited budget for marketing, capturing attention is a big deal. If your nonprofit could target marketing materials only toward the most likely recipients, you could save a lot of money and see a better ROI on fundraising campaigns.

Donor research and CRM software are essential data sources for nonprofits, allowing you to track donors based on specified criteria, including viewing their key interests. You can also note donor history or patterns and use this data to help move them up the fundraising pyramid. For example, you can identify people who have donated more than once in a four-to-six-month period or more than three times in a year and take them through a targeted email campaign.

Improve Your Programs

Analyzing your data can help your nonprofit power up the success of your programs. At a high level, data analysis can help you:

• Maximize your cost-effectiveness.

• Allocate resources efficiently.

• Grow your program base.

• Improve monitoring and implementation of your programs.

• Help guide future program strategy.

• Make so many more data-driven decisions.

Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of data-modeling techniques that nonprofits can leverage for good. Let’s say you run a local food bank. Ensuring you have enough resources available at any given time to support the people you serve is a crucial goal. Predictive analytics can help by forecasting the need for food so that you have an accurate idea of upcoming needs.

Data modeling like this can account for several factors that contribute to the need for your program. For example, what if a large local employer was laying off employees? This hit to the community’s income could impact the need for food banks or other local services. The nuances that data modeling picks up will often help with accurate forecasting. Factors like increased local rents or daycare costs are just a couple of additional examples that data modeling weighs.

Data analysis and visualizations uncover patterns that you can use to allocate your resources and make informed decisions. You can identify populations, individuals, or areas that may require your assistance. For example, The University of Chicago's Data Science for Good program used predictive modeling to identify homes in the local area that likely contain lead-based paint, which you could target for repair to reduce lead exposure.

Another example shared by Datakind uses a data modeling methodology called Time Series Forecasting, which Sanergy uses to improve access to safe sanitation. Sanergy has a mission to reach people in dense urban areas who don’t have access to sanitation in their own homes. Their Fresh Life Toilets in Nairobi need to be both available and affordable in order to help avoid the public health risks of poor sanitation. Data gathered on collection volumes helps predict future needs and planned network growth of their toilets.

Foster a Data-Driven Workplace Culture

“Culture” is often conflated with a nonprofit organization's mission, but the two are different. While your mission says what you do and for whom, your culture is more “how we do things around here.”

Organizational culture develops, whether intentionally or not, and nonprofits that choose to foster a data-driven culture can reap multiple benefits. For example, organizations that embrace data tend to be more creative and high-functioning. The data does not constrain them; they leverage it to use their time and resources optimally. They always know how the organization is doing and how the data can help create their future strategies.

Some other benefits include improved transparency and trust. You’re not throwing darts at a board, hoping to strike somewhere near the bull’s eye. You’re nailing the target more often because you have good data to back your decisions. People notice and appreciate the reasoning behind what you do. If someone asks “why?” you’re able to explain clearly.

A discipline of embracing data can lead to a positive workplace culture. A Harvard Business Review survey found that organizations that use analytics reported increased productivity, reduced costs, and displayed faster decision-making.

If you want to reap these benefits of a data-driven culture, simply having the data is insufficient. The data you gather needs action by using it to inform your strategic plan. You’ll need to use it as a driving force toward improved efficiency and effectiveness. In other words, you have to walk the talk. Understanding your data and maintaining a plan to make positive change is one of the first steps to creating a culture that embraces data.

Conclusion

Now, it’s your turn. As a nonprofit leader, it’s up to you to embrace data and encourage others to do so, too. If it’s new to your organization, you don’t have to turn things upside down overnight. Start slowly with a few focus areas you’d like to improve and apply data science.

As an analytical leader, you’ll improve your organization. Analytical leaders have "refined their decision-making processes as part of a data-driven culture and achieved superior financial results.” Additional impacts include attracting more donor dollars and furthering the organizational mission.

There’s usually a happy medium between emotion, instincts, and data science to make informed decisions that will strengthen your nonprofit. Use what you learn to inform your strategic plan so that your organization can continue to build its capacity to effect change.