May 2016

Nonprofit Dashboards

Presented by Jonathan PoisnerFor the Nonprofit Network of

Southwest Washington

ABOUT JONATHAN POISNER STRATEGIC

CONSULTINGServices:

Strategic and Campaign Planning

Facilitation

Fundraising

Communications

Organizational Development

Executive Coaching

Author: Why Organizations Thrive: Lessons from the Front Lines for Nonprofit Executive Directors

WHAT WE’LL BE COVERING

What is a Nonprofit Dashboard?

Why Dashboards?

What should go into a Dashboard?

How to develop your Dashboard

How to display your Dashboard

Institutional considerations

What is this?

What is its purpose?

WHAT IS A NONPROFIT DASHBOARD?

A 1-2 page document

Using a combination of charts, graphs, and tables

To visually present information about organizational performance

Intended (usually) for a board governance audience.

SO WHY A NONPROFIT DASHBOARD?

In light of our conversation about the purpose of car dashboards, what is the purpose of a nonprofit dashboard?

DASHBOARD PURPOSES

My top purposes . . . .

To track overall organizational performance

To focus the board’s attention on the most important things

To help the board (and staff) think strategically

To identify on a timely basis if the organization is going to have a problem

SO WHAT SHOULD A DASHBOARD MEASURE?

“Key Performance Indicators” or KPIs

Key – because you’re not measuring everything

Performance – you want measurements that evaluate how well you’re doing

Indicators – you want measurements that point you in the direction of taking action.

SO HOW DO YOU SELECT YOUR KPIS?

IF YOU HAVE A STRATEGIC PLAN . . .

Look at the Strategic Plan’s Goals

Hopefully the plan already contains measurements of success under each

Identify which of these are most critical at this point in time for the organization

Probably contains a combination of programmatic indicators and institutional capacity indicators (like finances/fundraising)

IF YOU DON’T HAVE A STRATEGIC PLAN

First, consider investing time into a strategic plan before developing a Dashboard.

But if you insist . . .look at your programs and ask:

Which of these are most important?

What measurements of success make sense in light of the challenge of generating data?

Then look at your institutional capacity and ask, what are the biggest indicators of success?

“COMPARED TO WHAT”

For any KPI, you must also answer: compared to what?

Will it be enough to just track performance over time, so compared to prior years? Prior quarters?

Should you also compare towards specific objectives you’ve set.

SOME CONCEPTS TO KEEP IN MIND

OUTCOMES V. OUTPUTS

Outcomes – the ultimate results from your work that represent advancement towards your mission or enhanced organizational capacity.

Outputs – the activities you engage in that you hope lead to outcomes.

WHICH DO YOU WANT, OUTCOMES OR OUTPUTS?

Both may be appropriate . . .

Too much outputs and you may be doing lots of activity, without knowing if you’re advancing towards your mission.

To much outcomes and you may miss out on early indications whether you’re on track to achieve outcomes.

Plus, for some organizations outcomes are really, really challenging to have good data.

WHAT ARE YOUR RISK FACTORS

If one purpose is to get an early indication things are going wrong, think about what indicators would apply. Examples:

Volunteer

Repeat Volunteers

Repeat Patients

Patient Satisfaction

Membership fundraising

Renewal rate

GOVERNANCE V. MANAGEMENT

If this is an organizational dashboard for the board, make sure it’s focused at a level relevant for the board.

Staff may ultimately use other Dashboards to help them keep track of performance within programs.

WHAT ABOUT FINANCES?

WHAT ARE SOME POTENTIAL FUNDRAISING KPIS

Total fundraising

Revenue broken out by fundraising strategy

Possibly as a net instead of gross

Number of donors/members

Renewal/retention rate for donors

Diversity of fundraising (by strategy, geography, etc.)

Percentage of contributed funds that are unrestricted

Many more possible KPIs

WHAT ABOUT OTHER FINANCE KPIS?

Cash on hand

Perhaps just unrestricted

Months of cash on hand

Expected cash as of 6 months from now

For nonprofits that generate revenue through fee for service, some of the KPIs may relate back to programs (such as people served, enrollment, etc.)

OTHER POTENTIAL CAPACITY-FOCUSED KPIS?

Staff focused KPIs Communications focused KPIs Board governance KPIs

YOU MAY WISH TO CREATE NEW METRICS

“Sum of All Actions” example at OLCV

Instead of reporting each and every communications metric (clicks, shares, forwards, donations, etc.), create a catch-all to combine them all as “actions taken in response to a communication” and track quarterly.

HOW MANY KPIS?

The sweet spot is 4-15, but there’s no magic here.

Too many and it will be hard to focus the board’s attention and to display it on just a couple pages.

Too few and you won’t really be assessing organizational performance, just a small subset of things.

WHO DOES THIS? A subcommittee of board and staff should launch

the process. And probably meet for a couple of hours.

Not something to rush. May turn out to take a couple of meetings as you figure out what data you can reasonably generate.

Then take a proposal to the board meeting and have a broader conversation with them for substantive feedback.

Then come back into a Committee (if necessary) to adjust based on feedback and work out any details.

DISPLAYING YOUR DASHBOARD

Excel is your friend

May wish to use green, yellow, red indicators

Scorecard-type display (indicators in rows with the actual data, goal, trend, and variance)

Graphic-style display (pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs, etc.).

Fully automating the process is unlikely to be worth the effort since data being drawn upon will almost certainly be in different places.

EXAMPLES

PROGRAM EXAMPLE

Source: Blue Avocado

Source: Blue Avocado

Source: Nonprofit Quarterly

HOW OFTEN TO REVIEW?

Dashboards should be reviewed by the board at least annually.

For some metrics, it may make sense to review quarterly or monthly at the staff level and then to share with the board if something is amiss.

There may be some organizations where a quarterly review of the Dashboard by the full board is worthwhile.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Don’t even try this until you have good data (finances, fundraising, programmatic)

Put someone in charge (both creation and implementation)

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good

No Dashboard is final

A Dashboard is not a substitute for providing your board underlying financial reports

CLOSING REFLECTION

I’d like you to each think for a minute on your own and answer the following question: What two things you’ve learned from this Workshop that you will definitely communicate back to others within your organization.

Then report back.

QUESTIONS

?

RESOURCES

Board Source, The Nonprofit Dashboard (2012), 2nd Edition.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/05/09/financial-management-models-of-a-great-nonprofit-dashboard/ (or google Polanco and Walker Nonprofit Dashboards)

TO CONTACT ME:

www.poisner.com – for email newsletter signup

Twitter.com @jpoisner

Via phone: 503-490-1234

Via email: jonathan@poisner.com