ROUND ONE: Could You Please Be More Specific? (Part C)

SO: 

Our side (think organizations combatting CP in one way or another) has these compelling missions and visions -- "Life Without Limits" to name but one. We're off to a great start.

Do our nonprofits in particular, however, have practical and workable ways of bringing those about, i.e., of realizing them? At finer-grained and closer-to-the-ground levels of detail, are they able to focus on the activities that are likely to have the greatest impact? Do they have the know-how and know-what to wisely allocate their time, talent, and dollars to them?

They say in business school it's just a matter of getting the right people doing the right things the right way. Sounds simple. Where the rubber meets the road, however -- where real people have to grapple with real problems -- it's anything but.

I've been looking for the past few years into COMPREHENSIVE APPROACHES to doing the above. ("getting the right people doing the right things...") There are several. One of the more interesting to me is Kaplan-Norton's Execution Premium Process (XPP). Proferred by The Palladium Group as system for achieving breakthrough results, it uses, notably, Balanced Scorecards for linking an organization's bigger goals with its day to day actions. And per Palladium's site it's "as effective for government and not‐for‐profit organizations as it is for corporations." 

(The Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame Award honors organizations that have achieved dramatic performance outcomes through through the use of the Balanced Scorecard. 2012 honorees include two US nonprofits -- Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation and Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Boston, Inc. See below for more.*) 

XPP is powerful, complete, and highly engineered. A criticism of it may be that it's not the simplest thing to implement, that it may require "dozens of measures, a data system, and a complex set of processes to get going."

SO:

As an alternative...

The Bridgespan Group specializes in driving nonprofit performance and offers a comprehensive approach of its own for linking an organization's mission with its programmatic activities. Its (approach) may be more accessible/ less intimidating/ easier to implement. "What are one or two things you could look at in a more methodical way to know whether your programs are working and how they could get better?" is the kind of low-key question they'd ask for starters.

While I haven't studied it in depth, I know Bridgespan's approach is similar to Kaplan-Norton's in that it's fundamentally the SCIENTIFIC METHOD applied to performance management and improvement. It's classic, closed-loop, quality control thinking applied to the whole organization, a structured way to continually learn and zero in on an organization's key goals.

As they put it:

As an organization’s leaders get increasingly clear about the results they aspire to achieve, and about what they need to do to achieve those results [DEFINE], they are better able to figure out what information will tell them how they’re doing [MEASURE], understand what works and what doesn’t [LEARN], and explicitly apply what they’ve learned to better their results [IMPROVE]. 

I like their overriding emphasis on learning, and on thinking of performance management & measurement as a tool for improving an organization's ability to meet its mission. To read about their five lessons for hopping on the performance management "lifecycle," go here: Measurement as Learning. 

CLOSING

Bridgespan, Kaplan-Norton, and other consultancies make strong cases for embracing performance management. (Several case studies are available at their respective sites.) Without it, how do you really know if you're making a difference? How can you improve your offerings and be accountable if you don't measure?

*From Palladium's site: 

The social services arm of the Archdiocese of Boston works to improve the lives of the poor. In 2008 CCAB implemented a Balanced Scorecard program in response to declining donations. Employees now focus on activities that are most impactful on the lives of their customers. By 2012 they moved from a budget deficit to a surplus, the number of people receiving food grew by 34%, and they are perceived by parents as one of the best daycare providers in the area.