PAF9151 Summer 2017 Online Community

The importance of accountability in a non-profit organization is essential to provide trust and transparency to all stakeholders. Non-profits are accountable to their stakeholders, staff, and population they serve. Organizations should be transparent by providing annual reports, listing primary stakeholders, and financial documents. This allows clear understanding and builds trust. For example, being transparent to committed donors, will allow donors to understand how their money is being spent. One vital way to measure impact is to conduct program evaluations. Evaluations analyzes activities, policies, inputs, and outcomes. Evaluations measures effectiveness and can determine areas of opportunity. They are important and helpful because internal stakeholders can make judgments on how to improve.

There are many organizations that focus too much on pleasing the board of directors or donors. Often, the mission and vision of the organization becomes compromised. Management should be able to continuously reinforce the organizations mission using an effective evaluation tool. Identifying the quality of the program can strengthen and influence positive performance. Setting measures and continuously weighing in on the impact to the organizations and constituents will ultimately set a level of trust, compliance, and transparency.

Collective impact is described as a way to collaborate to resolve issues by sharing information that can influence change. This framework uses different stakeholders that collectively shares the same vision to impact and change an organization. Different tools and methods are used to measure and monitor activities. Collective impact I believe is very similar to program evaluations. Both approaches identify and agree to measure programs and initiatives. The Collective impact approach as well as a program evaluation, both emphasizes consistent and open communication between stakeholders to maintain a level of transparency.

https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/collective-impact

http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/overview/models-for-community-health-and-development/logic-model-development/main

The link above does a good job of explaining a logic model. The example of the logic model for the tuberculosis control effort shows how important it is to distinguish between outputs and outcomes (in this model, outcomes are listed as effects). For this logic model, the output is how many patients begin, and how many finish treatment. The outcome is how many patients are cured, the reduction rate of TB, and overall health status of the population. This is a much better indicator of success for a non-profit. Just because a patient finishes treatment, doesn’t mean they are cured or that their finishing treatment will have a significant impact on the population as a whole. Focusing on outputs could make the organization look better than it really is. Also, notice that the effects box has an arrow connecting it to the purpose/mission. The outputs lead to the effects, but they are not directly linked to the purpose/mission.

The theme that resonated most with me this week was the idea that non-profits need to shift their focus from outputs to outcomes. The TED Talk by Michael Smith emphasized that too many stakeholders are interested in outputs-how many meals served, coats donated, etc., and this causes non-profits to place too much weight on these numbers. Additionally, outputs are tangible and more easily quantified than outcomes. Most non-profits operate within slim profit margins and cannot devote ample resources to reporting based on different stakeholder requirements. It is easiest to report on outputs. However, outputs just show that a program’s activities took place. This doesn’t necessarily mean the program made a real impact in the population it sought to make changes in. Outputs focus on short-term results. It should be cautioned, however, that putting pressure on a non-profit to show measurable outcomes can cause them to seek quick fixes in order to achieve these outcomes.

It is important to remember that equipping your constituents with knowledge is usually only a short-term fix–changing their beliefs will have long term-effects and show concrete and positive outcomes.

http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/philanthropic_freedom/the_dark_side_of_transparency

For this week blog, I have chosen the above article. Firstly, when a nonprofit wants transparency, it is easy for someone to misuse the funds and get benefit of contributors and the organization. Many stories of corruption become very common in the mass media and has begun to establish donor mistrust.  However, if a nonprofit organization turn out to be more transparent and reveals more information, that trust can be returned. Furthermore, when a nonprofit realizes a nightmare, it’s crucial   that the board instantly take action to recover the public’s trust. When boards reject to share information with donors or the public it nurtures red flags, individual start to ask questions and wondering what, if anything, are they trying to withhold. Even if a nonprofit has nothing to withhold, not being transparent increases eye brows. However, when a nonprofit shares information it attains donors and the public feel like they can be trusted.