"Three Cups of Tea"
During the cold months earlier this year, I had a chance to read a highly recommended book called, "Three Cups of Tea" written by David Oliver about an exceptional man called Greg Mortenson. What a book!! This story, highlighting miraculous changes, takes place mostly in the war areas of Pakistan and Afganistan.
Miracle one:
He was able to unite people from communities by focusing on one common goal - providing space and teachers to educate their children. Cultural groups, including members of the Taliban, overcame their differences in other areas because this dream of educating their children was far more important.
Miracle two:
On top of that, here was an American, a perceived enemy to some groups, finding the funding to help their children...unselfishly and involving even more Americans as the funders.
Miracle three:
I had heard that his schools had not been attacked by the Taliban and yet many schools are for girls only. Mr. Mortenson believes it is because the community feels it is their school, and the community will fight hard to defend it.
Note: the Taliban do not believe in educating girls and had closed down schools in southern Afganistan after they threw out the Russians. This year, in Pakistan, girls in other schools had acid thrown in their faces.
I highly recommend this book. It reminds me that we need to find what makes us , the human race, similar and build on that, not what makes us different. This book also reminds me that focusing on a few powerful, outcomes is ideal and it is the simplicity of the outcomes that makes everyone understand and be able to come together to make miracles a reality.
Something to think about...
Labels: outcomes, Three cups of tea
Let the outcomes fall where they may
As I was hiking with a friend today, she was telling me how a prisoner was changing the behaviour of other convicts for the good. In one story, he was trying to get prisoners to take out their anger or rage on furniture instead of on people. The prisoners wanted to kill a cruel guard. This wise prisoner suggested they destroy furniture instead. He had the prisoners understand the impact of this different outcome. By damaging property in the prison, they were going to make this cruel guard stay overtime. The prisoners were satisfied with this different plan. The man's life was spared, but his cruel actions were not ignored.
It reminded me of how important it is to have a definite outcome in mind for any organization. With a set outcome, everyone can then go the next step and begin to assess the impact of their actions. With no definite end outcome, the process becomes more important. People will only focus on their own daily activities or programs without analyzing the long term impact of their actions. You don't ask yourself whether there is a better way of getting the same or better results? How do you know if you don't know where you are trying to go.
The insightful prisoner could have agreed with his peers and organized a way to kill the cruel guard, but the impact of their actions would have meant more prison time for everyone and a lost life. Instead he figured out a way to get the same satisfaction without causing more harm to everyone involved. As a team, spending the time to create a similar outcome or end goal and then going the step further to imagine what the impact will mean will reduce inefficient activities and energy within your organization and could end up saving or rebuilding more lives.
Something to think about!
Labels: behaviour changes, outcomes, results
Who is your client?
I had quite the discussion with one of my teaching peers about who the client is for non-profit organizations. Do you know who your client is?
If you are a direct service agency, you will find it easier to answer this question, but if you are an umbrella organization, then is your client the people that you are raising the money for or the service provider agencies that offer the services? To add one more, is your client the researchers or the funders?
My argument was that whoever you are servicing, as stated in your mission, is your client. Well, you might say that is still not clear. Let's use an example. Supposing you worked for the national cancer society and your mission at the head office was "to find cures for patients suffering from various types of cancer. We will do this through extensive research." Who would be your client or possibly client(s)?
This can create quite the debate and has!! I would argue that the client is or are all the cancer patients. My colleague would argue that it is the researchers.
Let me throw something out at you. Supposing we were to take the researchers as the clients, then our success could be measured by finding the reseachers and the money to undertake extensive research. In other words, we could be judging our success by number of ongoing research projects. That is process. Yes, researchers do want to find cures, but...
If we were to take the cancer patients as the primary client, then success would ultimately be based upon finding cures for various forms of cancer or for increasing the survival rate. The focus is ultimately back on the person who is suffering from the disease.
Something to think about!
Labels: clients, non-profit, outcomes
Outcomes
There are a few different outcome development models around. Many of these models tend to focus on program outcomes - very few on organizational outcomes; however, I think the organizational outcome is the most important.
The most read statement in an agency's brochure is the mission statement. In a mission statement you define who the need is for, what the need is, why it is important and how you will meet the need and in some cases where the agency is located.
After reading a mission, most funders want to know how:
What are you trying to achieve and are you achieving it?
Organizational outcomes are about answering the above questions. On the other hand, program outcomes just tell you about the various pieces and whether they are or are not working. You may have some programs that are very successful and others not so. So what? This doesn't make you as accountable to your funders because piecemeal results don't tell funders whether overall your clients have achieved what you have stated in your mission.
Organizational outcomes, if properly measured, will also keep you constantly reviewing your organizational alignment. Checking alignment will keep you focused on offering programs or services that are aligned with your mission. Everything is integrated.
Something to think about!!
Labels: NGO, non-profit, outcomes
bottom line for non-profits
Have you ever been in a fundraising meeting and the funder has asked you what your bottom line is? Most funders expect you to answer in financial terms because to the corporate sector, bottom line means net profit or net surplus (some use the expression to force you to get to the point, but we will save that for another discussion).
I would like to challenge you to think about what the bottom line equivalent really should be in the non-profit sector. Businesses are typically in business to make money; otherwise, why would you be in business? We won't get into tax havens or write-offs here!
So, the bottom line for the corporate or for-profit sector is whether or not you did. Excuse the pun, but that makes sense. If your goal is to make money, then your bottom-line should be showing whether you have or not.
In the not-for-profit sector, what is the goal? Since most agencies deal with people, I think the end goal for most agencies is to have as many clients succeed or meet the purpose of your agency. So, I think the bottom line for non-profit agencies should be based upon how many clients have succeeded. This is also be known as the organizational outcome.
Since most non-profit agencies are established based upon meeting some kind of societal need, would not the bottom line be whether or not you have come closer to solving that need? If your mission states that you will find jobs for homeless youth, then shouldn't your bottom line be whether or not you have?
I am not saying that financial stability is not important. It certainly is, but I believe it is a means to the end, not the end. If you agree with my thinking, then think about how much time you devote to client success versus how much time you spend towards raising or cutting funds.
Many agencies that I have worked with over the past eight years have not really figured out their end goal in terms of client success. They are unsure of how to define it. They can tell me how many clients are currently using or have used their services, but they can't tell me what kind of success they expect from clients as a result of using their services or programs.
Consequently, it becomes easier to define the bottom line as financial stability.
Something to think about!!
Labels: bottom line, client success, non-profit, outcomes
