PAF9151 Summer 2017 Online Community

What is the purpose of program and/or organizational evaluation?

The purpose of program and organization evaluation is to see if the organization is most effectively utilizing its resources and achieving its mission. Unfortunately, as mentioned in the Stanford Social Innovation Review article, nonprofits usually only engage in their own internal evaluations in order to please a funder, listening to their needs, instead of listening to those who matter most – the beneficiaries. The article goes on to mention that this is very different from the for-profit world: customers technically “evaluate” businesses everyday through their purchasing power. However, in the nonprofit world, beneficiaries can’t always “move their business elsewhere” – sure a client can choose another human services organization to visit to receive counseling services, but can whales really “choose” another human rights organization? This is why it’s critical that organizations routinely complete strategic planning and then have the board of directors review that strategic plan, THEN after the organization has completed the 3-to-5 year term of the strategic plan, they should evaluate themselves to see how well they have achieved their goals. Additionally – client feedback is enormously powerful – at our nonprofit, we use a range of strategies to solicit feedback from our clients, including surveys and focus groups. We have often found that some of our educational materials to be too confusing for the end user – thus we weren’t effectively carrying out our mission! By evaluating ourselves and working to set high standards for our organizations, we can make a real impact and change lives, families, and communities.

Throughout the past few weeks, we, as a class, have spoken about what defines a non-profit and our motivations behind one day joining them. One reality that we all acknowledge is that we do not expect to grow rich from our non-profit jobs.

It seems the reality of low salary non-profit jobs are starting to change. A recent MarketWatch piece shares the corporatization of non-profits that have led to an increase in compensation packages. Many salaries in larger non-profit now rival those offered in the private sector. And it builds on itself, as more non-profits offer larger compensation packages, as the piece notes: “nonprofits are typically able to justify the high pay to their executives through comparisons to other organizations in the same field.”

It raises the question over whether these compensation packages are justified. If a program is successful, does that mean that those who oversee it should be generously compensated for it? If a program is only spending a respectable portion of its budget (say, only 10-15%) on salaries, then is it justifiable to provide a high salary.

My thoughts on this are mixed. I do believe that low salaries should not be a reality of non-profits — but I believe this should be distributed, not just at the top. As such, while I believe the salaries of non-profits should be competitive, in order to attract top talent and ensure employees do not sacrifice in the name of the organization’s mission.

Donations to an organization are fruitless if the staff that run it are overworked and unpaid. Programs lose their effectiveness, and dollars go to waste.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/public-media-ceos-salary-is-modest-compared-to-these-million-dollar-packages-at-other-nonprofits-2017-07-11

For small nonprofits that find it challenging to engage in legitimate assessment and evaluation because they lack the resources to do so, I want to share a Self-Assessment Tool that is available on the website of the National Council of Nonprofits (their website is also a useful resource).  This particular tool is intended for the Executive Director and Board Chairperson, and appears to be quite extensive, covering 90 questions over 9 pages.  But for a small organization that does not have many, if any, employees, there are certain sections that are more relevant, such as the Fundraising Strategy section on the last page.

We know from the readings this week (particularly Ebrahim’s helpful working paper) that accountability for nonprofits has many different dimensions (upward, downward or internal) and can be reflected in processes such as disclosures, evaluations/performance assessments, self-regulation, participation and adaptive learning (Ebrahim, p. 28).  For a large, well-funded organization, its leaders know that they have to prepare Form 990 disclosures and publish Annual Reports, and utilize budgeted resources to conduct evaluations from various stakeholders (beneficiaries, constituents, employees, volunteers). In addition, the Board of a large, established nonprofit gets together and critically evaluates how well the organization is fulfilling its mission, at least once a year.

But for small non-profits, or very new organizations, there is a tendency not to think about accountability at all because there are more existential concerns such as: can we pay our bills and salaries? will we exist in a month or in year? does anyone care about what we’re trying to do?  Such a small nonprofit may not even be required to file an annual Form 990 under the IRS rules, and their Boards may consist of just 3 or 4 people, but I think such organizations can benefit their sustainability by engaging in certain accountability actions, such as distributing online surveys to their constituents.

Aside from assessing constituents’ level of satisfaction with the organization’s programs, the nonprofit will learn something important even if there are very few responses to the survey invitation: low participation in surveys is often an indicator that the survey targets are either apathetic about the organization, or that there should be a better communication channel chosen to communicate with constituents.  For example, a nonprofit that serves homebound senior citizens may not want to rely on an online beneficiary survey link e-mailed to seniors because many such beneficiaries may not regularly use e-mail or the internet.  The leader(s) of the organization must be prepared to confront inadequate survey responses head on, rather than assume that “no news is good news.”  When constituents or beneficiaries ignore a nonprofit’s survey, this is a sign that the organization should do a rethink of its operations and/or communication strategy.

This is a difficult article to post, as I had a relationship with the Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis for the past few years.  Pulmonary Fibrosis – a progressive and fatal scarring of the lungs – gets very little media coverage and even less federal funding. There are currently 5 million people worldwide suffering from this disease. For years there were two organizations (CPF and the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation) scrapping for scarce resources.  In the end, the board of the CPF decided the best way to be accountable to their constituents was to shut down and join forces with the larger organization.

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2015/11/19/788858/10156851/en/Coalition-for-Pulmonary-Fibrosis-to-Cease-Operations.html

Nonprofit organizations are accountable to many actors. This factor creates a lot of complication when it comes to transparency and impact assessment.  They are accountable to their funders to clients, and to themselves and their missions. In other words, they are accountable to all their stakeholders whether horizontal or vertical stakeholders. Usually the leadership of the nonprofit tend to pay more attention to accountability when there is a problem in the sector or within the organization. In that line of thought, it might be best for non-profit governance to always revisit the organization’s policy on accountability and ensuring they are compliant. Nonetheless, as posed in the reading, “is it feasible, or even desirable, for nonprofit organizations to be accountable to everyone for everything?”. I would argue that it is quite a hard task to do.

One of the many actors that nonprofit is accountable to is their clients, that is the people receiving the services although it may also include communities or regions indirectly impacted by nonprofit programs. Often, nonprofit organizations make the mistakes of overlooking the experiences of the people who are benefiting from their social programs. Their input is highly important at the evaluation period as they can give valuable insights into a program’s effectiveness, listening to them can only lead to better outcomes.

Ultimately, for this topic on transparency and even for evaluation purposes, one of the challenge for leadership, governance and management of nonprofits is to prioritize and to decide the actors they are accountable for.

A Case Study: Are Your Donations Going Where You Think?

I am sharing this article. It is about a case study about fundraising transparency in non profit organizations. The name of the organization is Aish International. This case incites us  to consider how open an organization needs to be about the specific recipients of the funds it raises.

According to this article, it appears that Aish International failed to implement some of the ways to be transparent from the National Council of Non profits. “Be honest in solicitation materials and truthful and clear in communications with donors about how their gifts will be or have been used” . Ultimately, this case study shows us that mismanagement of funding, lack of transparency  and accountability lies in the hand of the board of directors but it can also lead to questioning the integrity of the executive director.