Well what can I say that hasn't been said?
Its quite apparent that accountability measures do not always measure organizational effectiveness, or even sometimes, accountability. I wonder what kind of metrics can be used to both ensure accountability for funders and organizations. Or feedback that is more useful for organizational improvement at least? If organizations are not seeking to better themselves, then whats the point? There might come a time when a particular organization loses a prominent and reliable funder, and if they have spent their time only appeasing that funder's wishes and not becoming more effective, that same organization might go under. This theoretical scenario might become a reality for stagnant nonprofits that have become totally reliant upon government funds.
So, when it comes down to it, I think there is a real need for different evaluative tools that measure an organization's effectiveness in terms of mission, and not necessarily donors. I know this is not always possible due to scarce financial resources, but I think its worthwhile to come up with metrics to improve your organization, even if you are meeting accountability standards of funders.
For the most part, service beneficiaries are a currently untapped resource in evaluating both effectiveness and accountability in an efficient way.
In our weekly reading logical framework is mentioned as a tool to use to measure the performance-based accountability. My experience with this tool shows that it is a very effective tool to ensure accountability for both the funders and organization itself in the frame of a particular project. This chart helps the project managers to think a lot about the results and the impact of each activity, goal and objectives and it also helps to draw how he/she will measure the achievements.
ReplyDeleteWhen the organization uses a logical framework in its projects it is changing its profile from process oriented to result oriented. All the projects with logical framework are very easy to implement and very easy to succeed.
Logical framework is the “deal” of the organization with itself and with its funder. The indicators mentioned in the logical framework are becoming the single performance indicators for the project. The donor and the organization agree that if they reach these results it would be the success of the project.
If it is a requirement of the donor to have the logical framework the project managers are preparing and trying to follow it because it is a part of the “upward” accountability. I am sure that if it is not the requirement of the donor a lot of managers are still skipping the use of logical framework and many projects do not have this simple chart as part of the project.