This blog is for students in PAFF 552/SW 525 to discuss performance, accountability and other issues relevant to nonprofit organizations and their work in communities.
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Friday, February 18, 2011
Effectiveness: What's important?
All of these forms of effectiveness are important, but which ones are the most crucial to overall NPO effectiveness and, I would like to add, sustainability?
Go ahead and write your response, then vote and view the comments for my own response. It's more interesting if you see results after you've voted!
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This was hard for me because I believe all are important. But I wanted to force a choice because it always makes for interesting conversation during class.
ReplyDeleteI chose Administrative effectiveness as my "forced" choice because I believe that good leadership and management can be what drives the organization to success, or failure. This is a rather top-down way of viewing effectiveness, but the director of an organization has influence in a lot of ways. Katie from Family and Children's Service made a big impression on me, especially her role as mediator between the Board of Directors and the organization. Her task of trying to persuade the board towards use of social media is an example of how important a director is determining the directions an organization takes. Leadership skills go hand in hand with management skills. Directors serve as staff motivators, and help to guide allocation of resources and how to best serve the community and/or beneficiaries.
My second choice would be Networking Effectiveness, because an organization needs active donors, volunteers, and community support for sustainability. And the only way to attract new donors and volunteers is though effective networking. According to VolunteeringinAmerica.com, New York state volunteers contributed an estimate of 8.5 billion dollars of service in one year. At the Tioga County Historical we have two paid employees, but rely on volunteers for much of the work. I thought it was interesting our our reading in Forces for Good that Crutchfield and Grant note that nonprofits should not see other nonprofits as competition, but as partners and thus, members of the organization's network.
If an organization has a good director and network, then other forms of effectiveness such as fundraising (to help keep the organization sustainable) and programs (which serve the public) will be more successful.
I’ve chosen program effectiveness, and hopefully I’m not influenced by the article too much. Although I agree with Robert and David that NPO effectiveness should not be treated as the sum of the effectiveness of an agency’s programs, I still think that it has a lot to do with program effectiveness. Last week my posting is about 80/20 theory, and I think if there is a performance measurement about NPO effectiveness, most people, if not a member of the board of the NPO organization, would view program effectiveness as a prime criteria (the 80 part of organization effectiveness).
ReplyDeleteFirst, it is easier to measure than network effectiveness or administrative effectiveness by an output/input comparison. Second, compared with those other choices which are easier to measure such as fundraising effectiveness and financial planning effectiveness, program effectiveness tends to have more impact because it is not merely about money. It’s about to what extent the organization meets its mission and its level of resource utilization. Third, it is more result-oriented. The book, Forces For Good, talked about how pragmatic social entrepreneurs are (which surprised me!), by telling that NPOs that made significant impact are on the relentless pursuit of results. Based on this criterion, program effectiveness can better represent an organization’s result because the outcomes and feedbacks are quick and direct.
I have made a choice. The choice is…all, as they are co-dependent parts of the same concept. I cannot be forced, despite your clever one-question survey. Freewill. “If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice,” to quote Neil Peart.
ReplyDeleteYou have posed an academic question. A semantic question, much like in class. As potential practitioners, we should focus on practice and performance/impact/effectiveness/what have you (this is difficult to do in school, when learning about a field, which by nature lends itself to practice). We can debate the innumerable credible perspectives in resolving the true meaning of accountability, or the most important form of nonprofit effectiveness. However, what will this do for us, if we are just arguing semantics? Do we not all understand these concepts, no matter how elusive or difficult they may be to fully articulate? In a related illustration from Forces for Good, the authors reveal the need for textbook mission statements as a myth, where agencies need not iteratively revise their missions to perfection. What matters is actualizing, living, or fulfilling missions (p. 18).
Language is a subjective, mutable technology. So what does “most important” mean? Or “effectiveness” for that matter? I don’t know. Or maybe I do! But they may be too cumbersome to describe using this thing we call language. =(
Once again it comes at no surprise that I have selected financial effectiveness. But, the choice was not easy. Andrea, I commend you for posting something so unique as far as a voting tool, since we have talked about public input and opinion via online voting. Not to mention the voting system we use in class as well. Great job!
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, all choices can easily be argued. Financial effectiveness to me, is what drives any organization. I previously created a post explaining that some of the most effective organizations have low budgets. A low budget organization cannot be effective without effective financial planning. I strongly believe that ALL non profits need some type of officer with a background in accounting and/or finance. Directors and other event planners are obviously tremendous assets to an organization, and letting them perform the duties they know how to do best will only be of a benefit. Letting a financial planner or chief financial officer handle the respective duties of budgeting, procurement and revenue projections allows those who specialize in their own areas to continue to succeed within the organization.
I understand that most of the largest and well known non profits do in fact have complete financial departments, however locally I don't believe this is always the case. As an accountant, I can say that I don't know the first thing about effective programs or even effective fund raising. However, I can confidently say that once funds are brought into the organization, I can help in planning how to use those funds to best help accomplish their mission and thus take one step forward in being "effective."
I chose network effectiveness. My reason for doing so was because our readings on social media and the first chapter of Forces for Good have struck home the idea that it's becoming more and more crucial for organizations to build relationships and work with people outside of their organizations in order to be effective. Two statements in Chapter 1 of Forces for Good really emphasize this point. They are: "Greatness has more to do with how nonprofits work outside the boundaries of their organizations than how they manage their own internal operations" (p. 19), and "Great organizations work with and through others to create more impact than they could ever achieve alone" (p. 19). I agree with both of these statements; however, I agree with the second statement more strongly than I do the first. While I agree with the first statement, I think that it downplays the importance of organizations' management of their internal operations a little too much. I think it's very important for organizations to manage their internal operations well.
ReplyDeleteIt took me about a minute to decide which effectiveness would be best for a nonprofit. I chose 'program effectiveness' .I must say that I was surprise for the amount of votes that program effectiveness received. I was sure that network effectiveness would have the most votes due to "Networked Nonprofit". I am assuming that this week's readings may have influenced the others to choose 'program effectiveness'. Despite the 'voting politics', I am comfortable with the idea that a nonprofit manager would consider program effectiveness as a top priority. While all effectiveness is indeed important, the reality is that as a manager you will have to focus on one evaluation at a time. Concentrating on multiple evaluations at once would not ensure an accurate evaluation on effectiveness.
ReplyDeleteOverall, nonprofits provide service through their programs. In a sense, a nonprofit program is the face of the organization. Therefore, if a program is ineffective, than the nonprofit can suffer. Beneficiaries could decline services, funders can withdrawal, and providers' performance can depreciate.
I also chose the program effectiveness. The programs are designed by the organizations to fulfill their missions. They are the tools, mechanisms and approaches that organizations choose to reach their beneficiaries and make a difference. Fundraising effectiveness is important but if we will not succeed in the program implementation what is the value of the effective fundraising.
ReplyDeleteMy second priority would be the network effectiveness as I agree with Crutchfield and McLeod Grand that the effectiveness of the organizations is usually in their ability to work outside and use the resources and capacities of others institutions to reach the objectives. Effective networking is also contributing in the program effectiveness thought human and financial resource mobilization, new connections creation, and consultancy and experiences sharing possibilities.