Benchmarking for Nonprofits: How to Measure, Manage, and Improve Performance

by Jason Saul

The no-cost way to improve your organization on a daily basis Most nonprofits are already benchmarking informally. This unique book defines a formal way to benchmark. You'll learn how to prepare your organization, measure performance, and implement best practices as well as learning the five key steps of benchmarking, the arguments against benchmarking—and why you should disregard them, how benchmarking differs from evaluation and assessment, how to form a benchmarking team, how to create a “success equation” that helps you measure your organization’s performance, how to make sure to measure what matters, how to choose your benchmarking partners—and what you can learn from the “wrong” partner, and how to overcome staff resistance to benchmarking. Practical tools help you benchmark what matters Real-world examples illustrate benchmarking in action. Exercises and worksheets guide you through processes such as drafting a benchmarking plan; identifying and analyzing the things in your organization that need improvement; prioritizing which processes to focus on; identifying your CTQ (critical to quality) outcomes; and more. The way to survive as a nonprofit in today’s market is to thrive. With so many organizations seeking the same dollars, only the best will endure. Benchmarking ensures that your organization is always operating at peak performance. It’s something you can’t afford not to do—especially since you can do it for free!

Genres: Business, Museums

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2004

Reviews

[Martha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not find this book as helpful as I thought it might be, based on the title.

On the plus side, this book included a clear focus on nonprofits (though primarily larger ones), a nice overview of why benchmarking is important, good worksheets and some helpful recommendations around developing implementation plans.

However, I think one of the largest downsides of the book is that it really only gives you the feel for how to develop a full-scale, overarching benchmarking plan - one that is very detailed and comprehensive. Limited discussion is provided on how to do a shorter and more straightforward benchmarking analysis reviewing one or two specific topics. As a result, the benchmarking process can seem overwhelming - I can't imaging jumping into it for the first time with large-scale projects that I feel this book is developed around.