Three tenets critical to a thoughtful and productive approach:

  • Keep evaluations practical and relevant. What do you need to or want to know, based on how you will use the information? What are your primary purposes for evaluating nonprofit organizations?
  • Share and learn from successes and failures. Social change is not the result of one funder or one organization’s work. A networked community of experiences lies behind long-term impact. And a failure, if a program is properly pre-assessed, is a critical data point for donors and charities alike. If Approach A was a miss, how should that inform Approach B?
  • Time for assessment and planning is time well-spent. For funders of all types, invest at least some time and effort in due diligence, analysis, and reflection to consider how best to target limited resources for greater impact.

Before writing a check, every donor needs to be confident of a few things. Does the nonprofit have a track record of success in making progress towards its mission? Is the executive team and staff experienced and capable? Is the charity generally on stable financial and operational ground? Is there a strong fit between the funder’s goals and the organization’s mission and needs? For those who want to support innovative approaches, the questions may be a bit different, focusing more on risk analysis. The key is to think through what questions are important to explore before considering a potential grant.

Read the full article about evaluating charities by Leslie Pine at The Philanthropic Initiative.