PAF9151 Summer 2017 Online Community

“Building Donor Trust through Transparency and Accountability” discusses how being transparent and authentic can benefit a nonprofit organization in many ways. Being transparent will allow donors and foundations to trust you. They will see how authentic you are about your work and what you believe in, and therefore give you funds. Furthermore, sometimes donors will even increase funding if they see transparency from your side. The article stresses that donors are not just concerned about the financial aspect of their relationship with a nonprofit, but “they evaluate how well the charity is run, its fundraising ethics and whether it assesses the effectiveness of its programs” (Taylor).

Furthermore, some organizations may fear that evaluations will reveal their weak points or things they are not doing well. They don’t realize that evaluations are not necessarily a bad thing. If your weak points are highlighted then donors will be able to advice you about ways to improve and do things differently. Organizations will be able to see things differently, and therefore the good side of evaluations outweighs the cons of evaluations.

Link: http://nonprofitinformation.com/building-donor-trust-through-transparency-and-accountability/

Nonprofits are accountable to donors, foundations, charities, and those who provide revenue in order for the organization to live. Some who donate will not require an extensive explanation or evaluation but others will. It all depends on who the donor is because a foundation may require certain information and outcome in order for them to provide you the same funding next year. I think the best form of evaluation is speaking to the beneficiaries just like the article Listening to Those Who Matter Most, the Beneficiaries mentions. Most nonprofits do not give much importance to evaluations from those who use their services. But how will the organization be able to implement change or continue doing what it is doing if it does not know how the actual beneficiaries feel.

Nonprofits work for the public and therefore should listen to the public. If I use someone’s service I would be able to explain how I felt about their service and then the organization will be able to evaluate the next steps. I think  when evaluations should occur mid-way in the program or activity and then again at the end of the program or activity year. Sometimes it’s even important for the organization to gauge in pre-evaluation by giving people some type of test or survey in the beginning of their time in the organization. This way the organization can see how people improved or did not improve from the beginning to middle and then at the end. Yes, this requires a lot of human resources but measuring services is extremely hard. We can compare someone’s test scores or improvement in academics due to its numerical value, but how do we accurately measure whether an advocacy group or rural development organization was able to bring monumental changes? This is why evaluations are necessary. The TED Talk video discusses how nonprofits spend little to no money on evaluations. These are organizations we trust to alleviate or change something in our life. Private organizations spend so much money on results and impact, so why don’t nonprofit organizations do the same? Lastly, it is interesting how Michael Smith from TED Talk mentions how we like to see rates on the kinds of food we eat, so don’t we demand the same from nonprofit organizations? Results are important in any arena, for-profit or nonprofit.

Lastly, failing to engage in effective evaluation of programs and their impact will eventually show in amount of funding you receive. People like to see change and improvement in paper because an Executive Director or the development team speaking highly about the organization can only do so much. Donors like to see year by year changes. Donors like to see how much an individual or community was influenced by the organization.

Founders, clients, target groups, donor and the overall mission. These relationships are upward and downward or external and internal. How much accountability varies depending on the relationship that the organization has with the next entity. Some relationships can be at odds with each other. For example, attempting to meet requirements set by donors may draw the company away from its mission. A mission may be to broadly defined, which mean additional requirements that are not clearly linked to the mission must be completed, that in turn can go against staff accountability.

To correctly assess the effectiveness of any program, an evaluation has to regularly occur to test whether success is being achieved. The scientific method is the most popular choice. It is defined as the follow by the WK Kellogg Foundation “The scientific method is based on hypothetico-deductive methodology. Simply put, this means that researchers/evaluators test hypotheses about the impact of asocial initiative using statistical analysis techniques” Evaluation takes into account statistics and correlates inputs with outputs. It occurs after the implementation of a program and used to measure what works and what does not. Failure to properly evaluate a program can result in wasted funds, poor program management, unequally salaries and failed intentions. The impact may be lessened or completely missed with the inputs are no relevant to the intended goals.

This link, to the “6 Stages Of Data Maturity” by The Nonprofit Times, presents 6 stages of progress related to data gathering and utilizing the data to make tactical decisions in a nonprofit. A maturity model addresses how organizations can collect and manage their data strategically; transforming this data into useful information to improve programs. The model allows nonprofits to identify their current data maturity stage and decide where its needs to go and what it should do to make progress. For example, a non-profit may feel they are at Stage 3: Get Community Feedback. They have already completed stage 1 and 2; collecting the appropriate data and understanding how to organize it. In stage 3 the organization must then gather feedback from a specified population and then combine the responses with the collected data from the previous stages to understand how to adjust programs for better outcomes.

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.

Watching the TEDxMid Atlantic video made me realize just how much our decisions are based on word of mouth. I thought it was a very interesting point that he was making when he argued for the need to do your research before you support any nonprofit. Sometimes we let ourselves go by facades based on first good impressions or whatnot, but we fail to proactively do our research about what organization we are supporting.
In a fundraising class, I learned about www.charitynavigator.org, a nonprofit whose purpose is to be a charity evaluator. Ideally, prior to a donation, some kind of research should be done by the donor in which the donor obtains an idea about how the donation will be utilized. Organizations are scored and rated based on (1) financial and (2) accountability and transparency, based on varies metrics like program expenses, administrative expenses, fundraising efficiencies, and liabilities to assets, to name a few in the financial aspect, and information provided on the Form 990 (Independent voting board members, CEO listed with salary, and conflict of interest policy, to name a few) and the accessibility of information in the charity’s website.
Charity Navigator also gives you the income statements, where its revenue comes from and what its expenses are like. It also shows the trend of revenue and expenses throughout the years and the compensation of its leaders. Another great contribution of the website is a comparison of overall ratings between charities with other similar types of work. In more detail, Charity Navigator also breaks down the organization by the three top programs and shows how much is spend for each program.
All around Charity Navigator is a great tool and definitely one that every donor should be aware of and utilize before making any donations to a charity they know little about.

Earlier in the semester we discussed the role of stakeholders in a nonprofit and how they can influence and shape the activities of the organization. We spoke about gathering feedback from the intended beneficiaries of these programs to learn about the effectiveness of the services provided. In the article, “Listening to Those Who Matter Most, the Beneficiaries,” Twersky, Buchanan and Threlfall explain that by engaging stakeholders, nonprofits are better able to evaluate the value added to the community. Surveys and assessments can help determine if the organization is fulfilling its mission and if the outcomes are truly impacting its targeted population. This is essential to building a successful nonprofit. However, there are three main challenges that often prevent nonprofit leadership from conducting organizational evaluation; the cost, difficulty collecting data and fear that the results may highlight the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of the nonprofit’s mission and their approach. The last point was very surprising. Though there is no nonprofit organization that wants to admit failure, beneficiary feedback can provide organizations with valuable information needed to improve and build better programs to achieve a vision.

The article continues to discuss methods to administer surveys and obtain feedback within a health care and education setting. The authors offer two examples that have had positive outcomes: YouthTruth, a program designed by the authors to learn about the student experience and Hospital Care Quality Information from the Consumer Perspective (HCAHPS) which measures patient-centered and accountable care. Twersky et al. provide best practices for collecting data and integrating feedback into the organization. They suggest gathering feedback at different points of the program, so that feedback can be incorporated before the program concludes. They also recommend researching and designing a survey that will collect the kind of response that can help shape activities and impact your approach, while also making sure to tailor surveys to receive responses from all of the affected community.

This article “Are We There Yet? A Conversation on Performance Measures in the Third Sector” discusses the horizon for nonprofit accountability. It discussed a plenary by Dr. Alnoor Ebrahim on third sector performance metrics. There is an imitative called the Performance Imperative which is a project that is aiming to develop a common understanding of high performance – “the ability to deliver meaningful, measurable, and financially sustainable results for the people or causes the organization is in existence to serve.” The article discusses three different performance indicators and how the approaches are successful or not.

The Performance Imperative is a great model that all nonprofits should implement. The dimensions are process based and it involves “capacity to create the mode of transport, navigate collectively, recalibrate as conditions change, and discern optimal paths guided by mission and values.” It makes sure nonprofits have accountability to the right people and for the right aspects.

To Whom Are Nonprofits Accountable?

Being accountable as a nonprofit is a loaded statement. Nonprofits are expected to be accountable to many people: their funders and patrons, their clients, and themselves. As Alnoor Ebrahim discusses in his working paper, there is ‘upwards’ accountability and ‘downward’ accountability. However, I think most importantly is that nonprofits be accountable to themselves. Nonprofits must check up on themselves and ensure that they are acting in accordance to its mission and staff. Nonprofits must police themselves and make sure other people aren’t suspecting misbehavior. They must set high standards they need to follow.

Nonprofits have to be accountable for finances, for governance, for their performance and their mission. Nonprofits are accountable for finances through audits and also through transparency. They are accountable for governance through their board of directors who make sure the fiduciary responsibilities are covered. They are responsible for performance which relies on evaluation and ensuring their goals are measurable and effective. They are accountable to their mission – they are providing a public good and all actions the nonprofit does needs to be connected back to their mission. The accountability is done through reports and disclosure statements, evaluations and assessment, industry self-regulation, participation and adaptive learning.