Scaling Altruism

Conclusion

All the practices in this book work. They wouldn't be included here if they hadn't already had a strong basis in the practice literature and passed extensive testing with many dozens of nonprofit organizations.

While this book lays everything out in as close to a “paint‐by‐numbers” process as possible, each step is difficult, and success is far from guaranteed.

Because each phase and practice are challenging, it is easy to get bogged down or stuck. Fight the urge to have endless meetings by adopting an action‐and‐experiment mindset: “Let's get our plans to 80%, launch, and then see what the KPIs tell us.” Allow at least six months of leading and lagging indicator trend data to provide initial feedback on the strategy. The executive scorecard leads into a fresh round of assessment conversations: Does the evidence indicate that we have all the skills, capabilities, and resources that we need? These discussions can then inform improvements to the business plan, fundraising adjustments, and another round of consultation with partners. Ultimately there are revised, improved efforts at execution, and if all goes well, the data will trend more positively. If not, keep trying.

It's a circular process of continuous improvement. Each year the business plan is refreshed, the financial projection is pushed out another year, and the scorecards and dashboards are tuned up. Building this management system is hard, and the first year will reveal many challenges, but by year two, ...