The Accountability Burden

Yes, accountability is an important factor in gaining/maintaining the trust of stakeholders, the public, etc. The question is (as brought up by many of you), how far do we take this when discussing the functioning of a non-profit organization? In order to ensure quality service and ethical practices, it is of great importance to have performance measures and assessments put in place, but this can't be the most important factor. For example, what if the performance measures are accurate and are not measuring something that actually shows whether or not the organization is succeeding in accomplishing their goals and mission.

When staff members have to constantly worry about accountability measures over other tasks it can be extremely discouraging. I've seen this a lot at my job at the health department. We are constantly having to make sure we are completing the right amount certain tasks so that we can fulfill our monthly requirements. Instead of focussing on the bigger issues and working on things that could really make a difference, we often have to put those things on the back burner so that we can give the state the numbers they require. It is sometimes difficult to think outside of the box when you are constantly dealing with such standardized requirements. This seems to be the same case with organizations among all of the sectors and extremely relevant in the non-profit world since funding is often very limited and funders can decide whether or not they would like continue giving to a certain organization.