How Do You Know If Your Nonprofit is Moving In the Right Direction?

Anyone who has ever operated a non-profit organization will undeniably agree, they want their organization to be successful. But what is much less clear is the way in which you ought to define ‘success’.

Even though every non-profit organization is unique—and will certainly have different long-term goals—there are a few basic benchmarks that can indicate whether or not your organization is moving in the right direction.

Are you still committed to your mission statement?

Your mission statement should be what guides every single component of your non-profit organization. When you are first starting out, this statement is going to be what every action your organization takes ought to be in pursuit of.

Though it is perfectly acceptable to change your mission statement as time goes on, it is still important to have some sort of guiding foundation that you can rest the hard work of your organization upon. What are you trying to accomplish? How are you going to accomplish it? How is each course of action you are taking moving you in some sort of positive direction?

As your organization begins to grow, it can become very easy to get distracted along the way. Sure, you may have more Facebook likes than you did last week—which can be a very good thing—but when all is said and done, these likes are really just a mean to an end. Are you still thinking about the end you are hoping to achieve? Do you still have your eyes on the prize?

Have you been able to produce any measurable results?

When measuring the successes—and failures—of your non-profit organization, it is very important to have quantifiable results. Furthermore, you also want to be sure that the results you are hoping to quantify can be directly tied into your original mission statement.

It is not enough to simply claim that it ‘seems’ like things have been going well. If things have actually been going well, you should be able to produce the numbers that can actually prove it.

Anyone can claim they have been successful. Few people can actually defend their claim.

Take some time to think about the quantitative indicators that are guiding your organization. Is it the amount of people who follow you on social media? Is it the amount of money you have been able to raise? Is it the number of lives you have been able to change?

If you continue to make sure you are actually committed to producing quantitative results, the success you defined in your mission statement will inevitably follow. Think about where you are today, where you want to be tomorrow, and a reasonably tangible path that can actually get you there.

How does the most recent quarter compare to the ones before it?

Beyond just examining how your non-profit organization is performing in the status quo, it is important to examine how your organization has been changing over time. Though data may tell just one part of the overall story, the part that it is telling is perhaps the most important of all.

Using data can help you understand what works, what doesn’t work, and what needs to change. Look at the numbers from last quarter and compare them to this quarter. What numbers have changed? Why do you think they have changed? What do you plan to do in response to these apparent changes?

Data is perhaps the most useful tool for helping you recognize the ways your organization has been changing.

Just because certain numbers have been decreasing, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean your organization is in trouble. All trends might indicate either a good or a bad thing. What is important to realize is the need to contextualize them.

Perhaps the number of visitors to your non-profit museum have decreased this quarter. That could mean your organization is losing some of the steam it initially had. But that could also mean you have entered into the winter months when people visit museums less, and you are otherwise doing just fine. Regardless of what the situation might be, analyzing trends as they take place over time can surely lead you to understand the overall direction of your organization.

Do you have a clear path forward?

When it comes to successfully running a non-profit organization, momentum is more important than progress. Though progress may indicate the successes you have experienced in the past, momentum indicates your capacity for success in the future.

Every decision that has been made in the past is exactly that—forever in the past. But you still have numerous more decisions you are going to need to make as an organization, and these will directly affect whether or not you are able to succeed in the long-run.

What is that you plan to do tomorrow? How will these actions help you continue your pursuit of your overall mission? If your current agenda isn’t moving you towards some greater objective, you would be foolish to assume it will still be achieved.

Having a ‘clear path forward’ doesn’t mean you need to have the answers to everything regarding your organization today. It does, however, mean that you need to at least know where you are trying to go and be willing to act deliberately along the way.

Though there isn’t a single universal equation that can be applied to all non-profit organizations, there are a few things they all have in common. They ought to be moving in pursuit of their mission statement, acting to tangibly improve over time, and always be willing to put their special something above their own self-interests. If you can keep these things in mind, you will be moving in the right direction.