Accountability and transparency are key to running a nonprofit. Since most of the budget is obtained through grants and donations and the deliverables should be directly impacting participants, nonprofits have a responsibility to stakeholders and beneficiaries to be transparent and accountable for getting things done. As one of the article mentioned, social media and the availability of online resources make this a bit easier to accomplish but even then some sort of compliance control must exist to ensure things are getting done. Resources like Charity Navigator, a nonprofit that evaluates other nonprofit serves as a way in which accountability is rated and therefore transparency ensured. As the TED video stated, sometimes we do more research on what restaurant to eat at than the organization we are donating to. Although the internet facilitates researching where to put your money, it takes proactivity to research organizations.
One aspect that I also find very important in rating or assessing a nonprofit, like the Listening to Those Who Matter Most, the Beneficiaries mentioned, is the feedback from people impacted directly by the work of the organization. As someone who is affected by the accomplishments or lack of accomplishments of an organization, their input should be important to an evaluator. The feedback that they can give early on in the implementation of things can be very rewarding and important to leading the organization to success. We shouldn’t wait until we get negative results to make a change, but rather use participants’ input to make modifications that will lead positive ones.
Many times when implementing a plan, we focus too much on the deliverables and results without taking into account the steps in between implementation and deliverables, and the participants. Since participants are taking part in the steps from deliverables to results, their feedback and input can help us keep in track, ensure that deliverables are clear and obtainable, and provide feedback as to how to obtain the results we need. All while we are truly reaching our objective of serving participants and not simply meeting deliverables.