Non-Profit Measurement – Matt Needham

For-profit companies have it so easy. Maximize revenue, minimize expenses. Make a profit.

There are important steps to making a profit. Develop a product that provides value. Identify customers. Sell customers on your product. Bring in talent and keep them happy.

But at the end of the day, your balance sheet tells you how you are doing. It is not so clear for a non-profit.

I have worked for a few non-profits now. Here is a sample of their mission statements:

…to inspire, educate, and connect future leaders with the economic, ethical, and legal principles of a free society.

…to educate, develop, and empower the next generation of leaders of liberty.

…to ensure higher education becomes a place where classical liberal ideas are regularly taught, discussed, challenged, and developed, and where free speech, intellectual diversity, and open inquiry flourish.

If you are an organizational leader or a financial supporter, how do you know if a non-profit is successfully advancing such a mission?

This is where non-profit measurement comes in.

Non-profit measurement is the attempt to measure an organization’s impact. This means attempting to answer questions such as:

What does success look like?
Is our organization moving us closer to success?
How do we know?
If we are working towards long-term results, what short-term indicators can reasonably suggest long-term success?

In my experience, effective measurement provides a common language and clear (if inexact) answers to these questions. These are guidelines to steer team members in making decisions that move the organization in a unified direction.

If you wonder what I do for a living, I attempt to help the Institute for Humane Studies measure success and make better decisions towards furthering our vision.

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