Nonprofit Metrics You’re Not Using – But Should

We’ve all been there.

Your grant report (or your annual report) is due in a week, and you are struggling to tell a story of all that you accomplished this past year. You started with high hopes for sexy performance metrics to report, but the numbers don’t look that impressive.

You know you kicked butt this year, so why don’t the numbers show that? You wonder, “What did we really accomplish?”

Thousands of nonprofits struggle with performance metrics every year. The problem may not be your performance. It may be what you’re measuring.

Pull up a chair, be kind to yourself and let me explain.

If you’re already familiar with the many challenges in how nonprofit metrics are created and used, particularly by funders, feel free to jump to my list of 18 awesome nonprofit metrics to add to your planning and proposals.

Nonprofit Metrics and Fundraising: Is It Working? 

In a world obsessed with metrics and outcome-driven funding, it can be challenging to prove that your organization is having an impact. 

Stakeholders want to see positive change, and so should you. But how to measure that change is where our sector is getting stuck. 

Sometimes the change we hope to see in the world takes longer or is harder to measure than stakeholders would like. Change can be a slog, and slogs aren’t sexy.

Among funders, there’s a growing desire to “see” impact using numerical metrics that can be tracked within grant periods and presented in nice-looking charts. But the results of metrics-driven evaluations are not always as illuminating as they appear. 

The Risk of Prioritizing Outputs vs Outcomes

The obsession with certain types of metrics creates something called “goal displacement.” When people focus on outputs instead of outcomes, it can have unintended and damaging effects. 

For example, telling workers in a factory to make 500,000 bolts this year will make them focus on that number instead of producing safe and consistently high-quality bolts that will hold a plane together. 

Similarly, the reliance on charity-rating sites as measures of organizational effectiveness can create harmful incentives. Low overhead may be a data point, but it doesn’t necessarily point to organizational effectiveness or capacity. 

When grantees chase outputs (metrics) instead of the long-term outcome, they may be tempted to fudge or exaggerate their impact. 

This serves no one, and it contributes to poor data field wide. To reduce goal displacement, we need to think longer-term, push for multi-year general operating funding, and be realistic about what we can prove or accomplish in 12-24 months. 

Remember, we started our nonprofits to solve problems, not to spend all our energy proving our worth and asking “how high” when funders tell us to jump. 

It’s time to stop jumping and instead set our sights on the finish line together. Most organizations are tortoises, not hares. We need time.

What Nonprofit Leaders Can Do

Detroit’s Grand Bargin Made Possible By Philanthropy

As nonprofit leaders and fundraisers, we know the numbers-based, time-limited metrics most funders are asking for don’t convey the scope of our impact. Yes, they show a portion of our work – but only a portion. 

We know this and yet, because of the power dynamic in funding relationships, we still put these metrics in our proposals. And we still dedicate resources to tracking these performance metrics – because that’s what funders ask for. 

I believe it’s time to change this. 

We must push funders to start looking for other things to value, not just measure with metrics. We must tell stories of successes that aren’t easily measured.

As nonprofit leaders and fundraisers, we can guide and educate donors and foundations in how to effectively evaluate nonprofit performance. 

This starts with the metrics that we share with funders. In our grant proposals, our annual reports, our donor meetings – we have the power to start talking about nonprofit metrics in a new way. 

Many funders may be more open to learning than you expect. Program officers at foundations may not be experts in the field and they may not have any staff who are experienced practitioners. (Why do we set up our nonprofit sector like this???)

We should not be shy about asking funders to rethink how they measure success. I have seen funders dramatically change how and what they fund because of an “a-ha” moment or the changing of political winds. 

It happened when the City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy, and hundreds of foundations came to the city’s aid.

It happened in the Great Recession.

It happened early during COVID-19 and again after the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.

If funders can quickly change how they fund, they can certainly change how they evaluate their funding. 

By helping funders be more flexible in their metrics, you are doing the whole nonprofit field a favor.

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The Power of Mission-Driven Nonprofit Metrics 

The number one goal of any organization is to achieve its mission. This should drive all organizational decisions. 

But it takes years – along with building capacity and infrastructure – to do this. 

(A quick note here about equity. Too often white leaders of nonprofits ignore diversity and equity, claiming they are focused solely on the mission. This is bull! All our work to change the world must be done to lift everyone up, not leave some behind. Period. So, don’t hide behind your mission when you don’t invest in equity. Diversity work is the work, not an afterthought.)

For advocacy organizations, it may be especially hard to achieve their mission because they aren’t just trying to feed the hungry; they are trying to end hunger. Policy and structural change are powerful but take longer.

So, we must be realistic and broaden our perspective as to what can be accomplished. Unlike climbing a ladder, achieving your mission may not be a linear process. 

Instead, achieving your mission may be more like rock climbing. You may have to move to the side, or even descend, in order to climb to where you want to go. 

Sophisticated funders know this, but we have a long way to go to convince all foundations and donors to be patient. 

For example, the LGBTQ rights organization I helped lead for 12 years could not get a bill through the legislature because the majority blocked it. 

However, by staying in the media, speaking to thousands of people, building alliances, and growing lists, our organization built political power, and our sheer presence in the media helped people feel less isolated, “come out” to their loved ones, and genuinely feel like they had a voice in the state capitol. 

Also, over time, the number of anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation fell and fell. Do you think we took credit for that? Damn right we did. 

Outcomes…not metrics. The long game. We changed attitudes and the playing field on which the fights were occurring. By not focusing on impact, not metrics, we kept our eyes on the prize.

We must tell our organizational stories better. One way to do this is having better things to measure – or better yet, measuring something entirely different than we have been.

18 Nonprofit Metrics to Measure Organizational Effectiveness

18 Creative Metrics You’re Not Using But Should

Below I have compiled a list of ways to measure your organization’s effectiveness. 

Measuring effectiveness should be just as important as other measures being used in our field. By building organizational effectiveness, you can connect internal growth, capacity, and infrastructure to mission achievement. 

If you have creative (and legitimate) ways of measuring organizational impact or effectiveness, send them to me at Sean@mindthegapconsulting.org. 

1.  MISSION ACHIEVEMENT

Step back and look at your mission. Then look at your mixture of programs and other activities. 

In addition to program outputs like “# of people served” or “# of speeches delivered,” try to get a clear picture of what new results or dynamics have been created because of your work that are not so obvious. 

Sometimes you can get a clearer picture of how you are achieving your mission by asking your stakeholders (client population, donors, board members, volunteers, elected officials, etc.) to explain what your work means to them. 

Sometimes, as practitioners, we are too close to the work to see past the actual impact. 

We think we are providing a soup kitchen, but your service population may see it as a community center where new friends helped them with feelings of isolation and suicide. 

Some of the best work we accomplish toward our mission is an accidental (but welcome) byproduct of the work. Try to capture this impact through concrete numbers, testimonials, or other methods. 

Does your organization build confidence, resilience, and self-reliance? Create a tool to measure that if a great one doesn’t exist. If you can’t create the tool…tell more stories. 

Show the work. Be visual. Be specific. Use emotions.

2.  GOAL ACHIEVEMENT

Whether you have a strategic plan or not, hopefully your organization has set clear and relevant goals. Your goals should be derived from your mission (and your strategic plan, if you have one). 

Goal theory is proven to work. People are motivated by goals. And setting and reaching goals also shows your organization is strategic. 

So, if your organization is routinely setting goals and hitting those goals, you should include that as part of your organizational effectiveness. 

Of course, not all goals are created equal. Goals that are not strategic, difficult, and clear will not move you forward. Try SMART goals or better yet, SMARTIE goals. 

If a vast majority of your staff and board are hitting their goals, it likely means your organization is experiencing momentum and progress, even if some of your metrics are not stellar.

Reaching a fundraising goal may not necessarily help you reach your mission, but it might be a piece of the story. The number of dollars raised is an output, but how you raised it might have a fascinating outcome. 

Did you create three new revenue streams? 

Did you start raising smaller gifts door-do-door, and now you have a larger base of support? 

In the next few suggestions, we will talk about resource acquisition. Causes and campaigns, including organizations, need to build capacity to reach their mission. Don’t be shy about it. It’s incredibly rare and difficult for an organization to reach its mission with no paid staff, lists, or technology.

3.  CAPITAL ACQUISITION

If you have excellent office space or even your own building, this is important. 

Think about office equipment that you lease or own. When an organization begins to own things, it has more flexibility, possibly more cost savings, and more independence. 

The ability of an organization to do things “in-house” allows for faster decisions and faster implementation and may open doors for new work or new partnerships.

4.  TECHNOLOGY

Do you own your own server? Have you brought critical web, IT, or CRM capacity in-house? 

Are you now able to buy or subscribe to software that makes you more effective than you were before? 

For example, simply joining some coalitions will give you access to databases like the state voter file. With free access to the voter file, you can dramatically save time educating voters if you know who doesn’t bother voting. Bam. Zero dollars in cost, but tons of return for your organization. 

Does your team now use collaboration or project management software that has made you more efficient? These things help you do a better job of reaching your mission. 

They are assets you might not be counting.

5.  REPUTATION IS A FORM OF CURRENCY

Reputation is like currency. 

It is why your calls get returned. It is why you are able to build coalitions. It is why people apply for jobs with you and intern with you. It is why elected officials want to be seen with you. 

Your organization and its people collectively make up your reputation. Are you considered a thought leader? Have demands for your time increased over the years? 

Has having an affiliation with your organization grown in prestige over time? This is one of the hard-to-measure things that happens when you are effective. 

Don’t be shy about telling funders about it. Strut a little. It’s fun!

 6.  MEDIA AND PUBLIC RELATIONS (CREDIBILITY)

Sunrise Movement sitting in Speaker Pelosi’s office to get attention for Green New Deal. (From Grist)

Has your organization significantly increased its media savvy and coverage? 

Have you been able to shift the “issue environment” or the media agenda in any way? Have you made your mission more well-known or publicly accepted? 

Is there more awareness or behavior change because of your work? Can you measure reach or demonstrate positive coverage? 

Sometimes a media moment happens, and it changes everything.

For nearly a decade, there wasn’t a clear and identifiable policy in Washington, D.C. to curb climate change. 

But in December of 2018, activists with Sunrise Movement staged a sit-in targeting Nancy Pelosi and advancing the Green New Deal. 

Before that sit-in, few people had heard of the Green New Deal. But in the weeks following the sit-in, the Green New Deal was mentioned tens of thousands of times in the media and became the default climate policy for progressive Democrats. 

Mothers Against Drunk Driving was able to change the national conversation, and behavior, through its “designated driver” campaign decades ago. 

These aren’t metrics. They are movements. What shifts did you inspire last year?

There are countless examples of “moments” becoming a movement. It is not impractical to think that your organization can be poised for such a moment, where a proposed solution to a social or political problem can put you in the center of public discourse.

 7.  PEOPLE (TALENT ACQUISITION)

Don’t forget that your board, volunteers, interns, staff, chapter leaders, table captains, online activists, and other supporters are some of the most valuable evidence of your impact. 

The number of people you have in a part-time or full-time capacity is a measurable thing. The number of volunteer hours can be equated to “full-time equivalent” staff. 

The skills and expertise of your team also count. Is your organization the holder of the top talent in your field in your state? 

Is your organization a brain trust? If you have finance or legal subject matter experts on your board or staff, you should brag about your ability to recruit and retain them. 

When we tell the story of organizational effectiveness, we cannot forget that the judgment, expertise, and talent pool we have acquired must be taken into account, even if you cannot measure it.

8.  CHARITABLE RESILIENCE

Has your organization built a rainy-day fund? Have you diversified funding streams? 

Are all your vendors happy with you, and therefore sticking with you, year after year? 

Is your organization able to absorb or survive a shock to the system like the Great Recession or COVID-19? 

Even if revenue has dipped, if your number of donors, monthly donors, or renewing donors is strong, this is important. Are you starting to get more multi-year gifts? Are more and more people putting your organization in their will? 

Do you have a crisis communications plan in place to prepare for the possibility of a public challenge to your nonprofit’s reputation? 

How about a disaster preparedness plan? A succession plan? Do you have internal financial controls now?

Resilience is powerful, and donors love to see systems put into place that can help you weather any storm and adapt to change. They want their investments to stand the test of time. 

Many other grantees hoping to get funding are unknown quantities. Your organization is more effective than theirs if you have built your resilience.

9.    INFORMATION AND WISDOM

Does your organization hold on to data, statistics, stories, case studies, testimonials, surveys, polling, or any kind of data or information that has value? 

Has your organization been around so long that you know “where the bodies are buried?” 

Information is power. It is also a form of currency. 

If your organization conducts testing of any kind, it may be increasing your effectiveness. When I say testing, it could be a simple as A/B testing your email subject lines or work-shopping different soundbites and messages when talking to lawmakers, the media, or other stakeholders. 

Don’t discount longevity, seniority, experience, and the cumulative wisdom held by your organization. 

10. PROGRAM RESOURCES

Look at all the elements that go into producing your programs. 

Think about the workflow and intellectual property that went into building each element. Do you have market research, surveys, needs assessments, or logic models? Did your organization advance substantial and positive diversity, equity, and inclusion training or programming this year? 

Did your organization lay the groundwork and strategy for a local or statewide success in the next few years? Did you revamp your volunteer training manual? 

Has your staff and board decided to translate your knowledge, talents, or skills into curricula and courses so that thousands can learn what you know? 

Can you publish case-studies, so you transfer your wisdom all over the country? 

Only you will know how your programs improved over the past year, but don’t forget to keep track of where these activities made your organization better.

11. SYSTEMS AND MANAGEMENT

One of the best ways to make a strong case for your organization is to look at the synergy you (hopefully) have internally. 

This can include strong management of staff and systems. Does 100% of your board donate to the organization as a matter of policy? Are they all required to fundraise? 

Do you have functioning committees with charters and ample participation from your community? Do you use board agreements? Do you have internal controls to protect against impropriety? 

Does your board sign its conflict-of-interest policy annually? 

Do all employees have job descriptions, annual performance reviews, and strong participation in meetings? Is your organization complying with laws like Sarbanes-Oxley, IRS lobbying and election rules, and other best practices? 

Do you pay all your vendors on time, and do you respond to constituents in a timely fashion?

Has your organization eliminated any gaps or duplication within or outside the organization? How about bottlenecks, groupthink, dysfunctional conflicts, or turnover? 

Are you GAAP-compliant and have excellent, unqualified audits? Do you have any certifications, accreditations, or awards from your sector? Can you get some? 

Taking stock of these and other systems is one of the best ways of measuring organizational effectiveness. If you need to tell a funder how you’ve been spending your time, this is a pretty darn good place to focus.

12. SOCIAL PROOF AND STAKEHOLDER PRAISE

The vast majority of Americans probably can’t name a specific accomplishment of one of the charities they support. 

That’s because people just trust that organizations with a good reputation and mission are doing good work. Don’t be shy about taking the temperature of your stakeholders. 

If your organization is new, small, or focused on advocacy, it might be hard to prove impact. So, show your donors what your work means to others. 

Can you get letters of support for the work you do? Being deeply respected is a measure of organizational effectiveness. 

“Social proof” is a marketing term for the qualitative evidence of your value proposition. 

If you don’t have data showing that your approach is working, then use social proof (media coverage, quotes from fans or clients, or even external data, celebrity endorsements, certifications, credentials, etc.) showing proof of concept. 

There is a reason Yelp and Amazon reviews are so effective in making a sale!

13. CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT 

Being able to demonstrate to funders that your organization is able to learn, adapt, and even pivot, can be powerful. A Japanese term for this, Kaizen, is widely known in the business world, but less so in nonprofits.

Organizations can ask themselves “are we doing things right, or are we doing the right things?” Some organizations use a process of double-loop learning where they question their own norms and decision points, and actively work to challenge groupthink and inertia. 

If your organization is open to testing, failing, and then entering a cycle of continual improvement, then you are ahead of some of the largest organizations in the world.

Sometimes this means being self-aware enough to know that your organization doesn’t have to scale. Scale is a buzzword right now. 

Everyone wants to know if a program or product can go from a modest impact to global impact. Well, just like we have come to challenge the wisdom of multi-tasking, it’s time to challenge the notion that bigger is always better. 

Staying small may not only be appropriate, but staying small may actually be better. Evolution has always benefited smaller creatures over larger creatures. Staying small may be exactly why your organization can accomplish what it does. Staying small can be a deliberate strategy. Continual improvement may only be possible at a small scale, where you can do three things well instead of 20 things poorly!

“Staying small may not only be appropriate, but it might be better.”

14. INNOVATION

Are you doing something innovative? Have you developed a product, program, or service that is really spectacular or holds a lot of promise? 

Have you found a way to reach underrepresented populations who weren’t being served before? Does your board do things better than most, and are you willing to share that skill?

Is your work raising the sophistication of your sector or saving your sector money?

Have you found a breakthrough way to make your social media posts reach further? 

What do you do that is different, new, or creative? You can create your own best practices for the field.

15. PEOPLE POWER

Mobilisation Lab and the Climate Advocacy Lab produced a report in early 2020 evaluating ways of measuring “people power.” Instead of traditional metrics, some organizations are looking deeper. For example, you can measure the depth, strength, and quality of your organizational relationships with volunteers, coalitions, networks, and influencers. 

Is there true solidarity between your organization and like-minded organizations? How about the strength of your network? 

Do you have convening authority (do people trust your organization to lead and convene people for a collaborative effort)? 

Have you transformed the confidence, security, or resilience of your service population and volunteers? Is your organization able to get the targets of your campaign to shift or bow to your demands? 

Have you developed leadership, fellowship, and mentorship in your community? Share these successes.

16. REVERSE SCENARIO

This one is interesting. Sometimes the true effectiveness of your organization is what you prevented from happening but can’t prove. 

In the case of advocacy organizations, their mere existence may deter adversaries from picking a fight with their constituency. 

For direct service organizations, with government funding, you may have a dramatically reduced likelihood of facing “competition” from another service provider. 

Simply by existing, the YMCA and Boys and Girls Club have probably saved parents and society many millions of dollars, and lots of hassle, by keeping kids occupied and out of trouble. 

The Skoll Foundation and the Gates Foundation spent many years preparing for a pandemic. In 2020, the Skoll Foundation dramatically increased its giving. We’ll never know how much human suffering was prevented by its preparedness. 

Finally, for decades, GLAAD worked closely with Hollywood to make sure that defamatory representations of LGBTQ people were rare in major films. This has translated into a lot of social progress.

17. SCALE

I know I wrote earlier that scale isn’t for everyone. But when you need to get creative, don’t forget about your own demographic and geographic reach. 

Has your organization started reaching people outside of your city, state, or country? 

Have you been reaching people of different languages, cultures, customs, religions, and races? Simply being relied upon by a wider universe of people is pretty impressive.

18. DIMENSIONAL STRATEGY

Has your organization, over time, developed the ability to pivot to a completely different business model? 

For example, can your organization now compete in the marketplace because a product or service you offer fills a need and provides high quality at a great price? 

Has your organization decided to shift from charitable work to advocacy and political work? Have you decided that you have the resources and will to add a 501(c)(4) or a political action committee to your arsenal? 

Do you have 50,000 members who you now want to encourage to vote in an upcoming election? 

Will you now work to elect your friends and defeat your enemies if they don’t pass your bill limiting pollution? 

The ability to transform your work into new dimensions of effectiveness is valuable in and of itself. 

Are You Ready to Start Using New Nonprofit Metrics? 

Wow, you made it all the way to the end of this blog post. That means you are really interested in telling your organizational story. 

Just remember that we can’t even see some of the most powerful things we do because we are too close to the work. Listening to those who like and benefit from your work can uncover so many more options. 

Go forth and tell the world about your impact!