Once you know what constitutes success for your nonprofit it is easy to determine what more there is to do. If you do more, more success will follow. The key is carefully defining success.
Success is measured in many different ways at different times:
Will the clients need the same tools, attributes, attitudes, or skills to be successful next year?
Does the community have the same expectations?
Do the donor’s expectations remain unchanged?
Should you measure success in 2013 in the same way as this year?
The preceding questions identify four different ways to measure success. Which measure is the most relevant to your mission and the needs of your clients?
Let us assume you decided on interpersonal relations (the first question). You might also decide that a client has a high potential for better interpersonal relations if he or she has good communication skills. The next step would be to determine the attributes of a good communicator (empathetic listening, ability to organize one’s thoughts, careful word choice, desire to be understood, etc.). The final step is to create a scale and a minimum acceptable success level on the scale.
The strength of the attributes of each client will position them on the scale. Establishing the minimum level each client must achieve tells you what constitutes success. You now know the number that defines success.
It becomes easy to report to the clients, donors, and others the meaningful, measurable, and durable success of your program. The process can be applied to every client and the success of your nonprofit can be reported at any time.
Of course, the success measure must align with the mission statement.
Next Step:
Determine the one success measure you are going to use for your nonprofit for the next year
Determine the attributes that define the success measure and how you will measure the strength of each attribute as well as setting a minimum acceptable value for the success measure
Talk with your clients, donors, staff, and others about why the success measure is important (assures better interpersonal relationships for instance)
Report periodically to stakeholders your nonprofit’s progress toward achieving the goal and what the stakeholders can do to facilitate success
Repeat the process annually. You may decide to keep the same success measure next year. However, if you decide another success measure is more important, be sure to continue the pursuit of the current success measure as well.
If every few years you add a success measure while retaining past measures, you will develop a very robust program. Over time, in addition to your service performance (ending child abuse, feeding families, preventing unwanted pregnancy, etc.), you will have a program that is unique and significantly more valuable than other nonprofits in your area. You will also have more generous donors. In short, the sustainability of your nonprofit will be significantly higher.
