Giving Compass' Take:

• Andrew Urban lays out a framework for calculating return on mission, rather than investments, in philanthropic organizations to measure impact. 

• What criteria would reflect your mission and values in this framework? How can you assign value to these mission-based criteria? 

• Read about measuring nonprofit success. 

If we continue trying to measure social change by financial criteria alone, we’ll never have full view of the inputs and processes necessary to create lasting impact.

Many food banks know how much it costs to deliver X number of meals per day, week, month, or year. But why not go a step further and consider investments in the systems that provide support for the mission? Can a new financial management solution help drive better efficiencies in meal delivery?

Surely a general ledger isn’t making meals, but it is driving the supply chain that brings in the items that become the meals, paying the expenses for those who work to prepare the meals, and keeping the lights on in the kitchen and dining hall to serve the meals.

For example, if an ROI on a new financials system can create $5,000 per year in savings, then as an organization, you can attribute a portion of that cost to mission delivery enhancements. Divide that ROI by your meal delivery statistic, and you have a ROM for that new solution that is attached to mission delivery.

This line of thinking will have you reconsider what you see as direct programmatic delivery. Is an expense management or purchasing solution part of mission delivery? Absolutely, if the mission can’t provide optimal program delivery without it.

As you consider your next project, you, your internal project team, and your potential vendors all need to ask, “What’s the Return on Mission for this project?” If a positive ROM can be established, then you have a project worth pushing forward.

Read the full article about return on investment by Andrew Urban at npENGAGE.