Do Your Programs Contribute to Mission AND Money?

There is a tool that I think is incredibly helpful to nonprofit leaders trying to figure out where to focus their resources and how to plan for the future. Indeed it is typically one of the first activities in the strategic planning process I use with my clients.

The Program Matrix helps a nonprofit board and staff analyze their portfolio of programs to understand their overall mission and money mix.

Because those two elements — mission and money — are inextricably bound in an effective nonprofit organization. You simply cannot achieve your mission without an operation that attracts and uses money sustainably.

The Program Matrix looks like this:

And, here’s how to fill out yours.

List Your Programs
A nonprofit leader makes a list of all their mission-related programs and initiatives. But don’t include organization-building work, like pure fundraising activities, or board development. While those activities are absolutely critical to your success, they are a means to an end. For example, conducting a fundraising appeal has the goal of raising money to plow into programs. So in Program Matrix, we want to look at just the mission-related programs.

Plot Your Programs on the Matrix
Once you have that list of programs, plot each individual program on the matrix based on that program’s ability to contribute to:

1. Social Impact: The social change outcomes you are working toward, which are found in your Theory of Change (on the x axis), and
2. Financial Returns: The financial sustainability of the organization (on the y axis). A program that can attract enough money not only to cover its own direct and indirect costs, but also to subsidize other programs would be above the line (“positive”), whereas a program that cannot attract enough money to cover its own costs would be below the line (“negative.”)

Analyze the Results
Once you have plotted your entire portfolio of programs on the matrix, take a look at where they fall in the four boxes. These are:

1. Worthwhile: The program significantly contributes to the nonprofit’s mission and desired outcomes, but it drains financial resources from the organization. A nonprofit will always have programs in this box, and that’s fine.
2. Sustaining: The program doesn’t appreciably contribute to the nonprofit’s mission and desired outcomes, but it does provide a surplus of financial resources to the organization, which is great.
3. Beneficial: The program contributes to the nonprofit’s mission and desired outcomes AND it provides excess money that can be plowed into “Worthwhile” programs — this is the best of both worlds.
4. Detrimental: The program doesn’t contribute to the nonprofit’s mission and desired outcomes, AND it drains financial resources from the organization — this is the worst of both worlds.

Once filled out, the Program Matrix helps to surface issues that a nonprofit must address. First, any “Detrimental” programs should be significantly reconfigured, given to another organization to run, or abandoned. Second, in order to ensure financial sustainability, make sure that there are enough “Sustaining” and “Beneficial” programs to subsidize the “Worthwhile” programs. If not, you need to get strategic about developing programs that can offset the financial drain of the “Worthwhile” programs.

Repeat the Analysis Often
Once you’ve completed the Program Matrix analysis, rinse and repeat. On a regular basis (at least annually) board and staff should take a look at an updated Program Matrix and make any necessary programmatic adjustments. And any time you are thinking about adding a new program, redo the Program Matrix to include your best guess of where this new program will fall, so that you can understand its impact on the overall social impact and sustainability of your new portfolio of programs.

Armed with the power of the Program Matrix, nonprofit leaders can create a mix of programs that ensure achievement of their social change goals in a sustainable way.

Photo Credit: ParentingPatch