• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Social Velocity

Creating more strategic, financially savvy, and confident nonprofit leaders and organizations.

  • Consulting
    • Financial Model Assessment
    • Executive Coaching
    • Strategic Planning
  • Book
  • Clients
  • Speaking
  • Blog
  • About
    • Nell Edgington’s Bio
    • Media
  • Connect
  • Tools
Home » Board of Directors » 5 Hard Questions Every Nonprofit Should Ask

August 14, 2012 By Nell Edgington 1 Comment

5 Hard Questions Every Nonprofit Should Ask

FacebookTweetLinkedIn

Note: I’m heading out of the office for the next week and a half, but in my absence I want to offer a couple of blog posts from the Social Velocity archives. The one below appeared on the blog in February 2011. Enjoy!

I’m a huge believer in questions. Sometimes asking good, hard questions is the only way to get to the bottom of something, to analyze potential options, to find the right path.

So too in the nonprofit sector hard questions can play a pivotal role. It is critically important that we move away from an unwritten rule that “charities” are doing good things that shouldn’t be questioned, to a place where nonprofits are continually asking themselves whether they are making most effective use of resources and providing real solutions.

These are the 5 questions I’d like to see nonprofits asking themselves:

  1. Do we know if we are accomplishing anything? Because nonprofit organizations can’t simply look at a profit and loss statement to see progress, determining success is much more difficult than in the for-profit world. Yet a nonprofit organization cannot just translate community resources into activities and call it a day. Nonprofits are increasingly forced to demonstrate the change their work creates in the community. I’m not suggesting that every nonprofit must conduct large evaluation projects. Rather, I’m arguing that a nonprofit must create a solid strategy for creating change and then find a way (as cheaply and simply as possible) to determine whether they are delivering on that strategy.
  2. Are we adapting to our external environment? Gone are the days when a nonprofit enjoyed a core group of donors that funded delivery of the same services to the community year after year. In this ever-changing, increasingly fast-paced world, nonprofits must constantly analyze the trends in their external environment (funding, competitors, community needs) and effectively adapt to those trends in order to survive and thrive.
  3. Is our board helping or hurting? A board of directors can be a nonprofit’s most important asset, expanding its footprint in the community, bringing in resources, driving a bold direction, ensuring accountability and transparency. Or it can be a group of people who show up to network, meddle in minutiae, and bog the organization down. A nonprofit’s board needs to take a hard look at itself, as individual members and as a group, to determine if they are an effective governing body or not, whether they are moving the mission forward, or just getting in the way.
  4. Do we really need that new building? Time and again nonprofit organizations launch a capital campaign as a way to get their name out in the community, get the board motivated, bring big donors in the door, and seek significance and importance. But the result is often an organization crippled by resources draining away from the mission. Board and leadership needs to ask themselves if a new building is directly tied to achievement of mission. There are other, better ways to build your brand, rally the board and donors, and raise big dollars, like a growth or capacity capital campaign, which can actually result in more social impact and financial sustainability over the long term.
  5. Are we using money as a tool? Nonprofit boards often shy away from discussions about money, ignoring tools like financial reports, budget reviews and fundraising net-revenue analysis, in order to focus meetings on programs and mission. But money is an incredibly effective tool for making programs and mission happen, and nonprofits need to create and implement an integrated financial strategy that feeds into the overall organization’s plan. Money, if used strategically and effectively, can help your nonprofit do so much more.

To move forward, the nonprofit sector needs to do away with safe, routine conversations and start asking some hard questions. Indeed questions are sometimes the only route to open up possibilities, try new approaches and find a better way.

Photo Credit: Wade Rockett

Related Posts

  • The Right Questions to Ask A Potential Board Member
  • Nonprofit Leaders, You Are Not Alone
  • How to Remove a Troublesome Nonprofit Board Member
FacebookTweetLinkedIn

Filed Under: Board of Directors, Capacity Building, Capacity Capital, Financing, Fundraising, Leadership, Nonprofits, Roadblocks, Social Change, Strategy Tagged With: Fundraising, logic model, nonprofit board of directors, nonprofit capital campaign, nonprofit market research, nonprofit measurement, nonprofit outcomes, nonprofit strategy, strategic planning, theory of change

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Free Training

Consulting Services

If you want your nonprofit or foundation to do and be more, Nell can help you get there

Ready to Learn More About Working with Nell?

Book a Discovery Call
Reinventing Social Change Book

FREE GUIDE: Find Your Social Change Joy

  • Figure out what you LOVE to do
  • Make time for it
  • Find your way back to Joy

Featured Blog Post Topics

  • Social Changemaker Interviews

  • Smart Strategic Planning

  • Effective Philanthropy

  • Networks for Social Change

  • The New Nonprofit Leader

  • A Groundbreaking Board

  • Reinventing the Nonprofit Sector

  • From Fundraising to Financing

Recent Posts

Woman with magnifying glass

You Can Turn Any Challenge into Opportunity

Marching soldiers

A Social Change Army is Amassing

It’s Not All Up to You

To Save the World, Save Yourself

Imagine the World You Want to See

Categories

  • Abundance
  • Advocacy
  • Board of Directors
  • Capacity Building
  • Capacity Capital
  • Financing
  • Fundraising
  • Individual Donors
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Networks
  • Nonprofits
  • Philanthropy
  • Roadblocks
  • Social Change
  • Social Movements
  • Strategy
  • Consulting
  • Book
  • Clients
  • Speaking
  • Blog
  • About
  • Connect
  • Tools

© 2022 Social Velocity | Privacy Policy | [email protected] | Tel: 512-694-7235