Nonprofit+Sustainability




 * Masaoka, J., J. Bell, et al. (2010). __Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability__, Jossey-Bass.**

This book takes you through a number of exercises to map your organizational activities on a matrix with two axises, profitability and mission impact. The map makes it very easy to see how programs stack up in terms of their impact and profitability, and which programs offer the most and the least overall value to your organization. (1) You will rank each program for its mission impact (see more on how to rank below). (2) Have your bookkeeper or accountant identify the full costs of each of your programs. (3) These two factors, mission impact and profitability (or lack thereof) will then be plotted on a matrix that has profitability as its horizontal axis and mission impact as its vertical axis. By plotting each of your programs into this axis, you create an instantly educational visual that tells board and staff how productive each program is toward your twin goals of fiscal sustainability and mission impact, and immediately helps you prioritize. E.g., low impact, low profitability programs might need to be redesigned or pitched. The matrix below illustrates.





5. Use actual $$ measurements along the profitability axis, e.g. if the program bringing in the most revenues brings in $240,000 annually, then have $250,000 be the profitability end point of your matrix

6. Along the impact axis, use a scoring mechanism (see below)

7. Possible ways to rank impact:

a. For a quick start: survey staff, board, members and ask them to rank each program against the mission statement, e.g. (1) not much impact, (2) some impact, (3) strong impact, (4) exceptional impact

b. More rigorous ranking: rank each program for these seven criteria: (1) alignment with mission, (2) excellence in execution, (3) scale/volume/reach of program, (4) depth of impact, (5) fills an important gap, (6) community building, (7) leverage

Example of categorical ranking:
 * || Gardens  ||  Children’s Programs  ||
 * 1. Mission alignment || 5  ||  5  ||
 * 2. Execution excellence || 5  ||  3  ||
 * 3. Scale/reach || 3  ||  2  ||
 * 4. Depth of impact || 3  ||  3  ||
 * 5. Fills a gap || 5  ||  4  ||
 * 6. Community building || 2  ||  4  ||
 * 7. leverage || 5  ||  2  ||
 * ** TOTALS ** ||  29  ||  23  ||
 * ** Divide by 7 for SCORE ** ||  4.1  ||  3.3  ||