Zeroing in on Impact
All nonprofits have missions that define their reasons for being. They also have programs and services that contribute toward the fulfillment of those missions. But when resource-allocation decisions have to be made, determining which activities do the most good can be challenging. One approach to defining the most valuable programs and services is to help decision makers develop clarity—not about the organization's mission—but about what Bridgespan calls its "intended impact" and "theory of change."

Funding: Patterns and Guideposts in the Nonprofit Sector
In 2003, the Bridgespan Group researched the sources of funding for two small groups of nonprofits engaged in youth services and environmental advocacy. We also studied the funding for the largest nonprofits across a variety of fields. Our observations raise some important questions about funding patterns and fund development strategies.

Janice Bigelow, CPA: Becoming the First CFO at Communities In Schools
Prior to becoming the first full-time CFO for Communities In Schools, Janice Bigelow investigated whether the organization was ready for a CFO, and whether she was the right fit.
(This article appears on Bridgestar.org. Free membership required to view.)

Mike Dunn, CPA: Consolidating Financial Operations at Outward Bound
Mike Dunn used his experience merging three geographically dispersed family-owned businesses to become a key player in the consolidation of seven independent, regional Outward Bound schools into a national organization.
(This article appears on Bridgestar.org. Free membership required to view.)

MY TURN: Building on Success
In 2003, MY TURN (aMerica’s Youth Teenage Unemployment Reduction Network, Inc.) had developed a three-year business plan that envisioned significant growth in the number of communities and youth that the organization served. Within two years, the MY TURN had met those goals, and its leaders were energized to do more. Could they sustain such a growth trajectory and attract sufficient funding? Should they add programs, sites, or both? And what would all of this mean to their staff, systems, and existing structure?

Harlem Children's Zone- Learning to Grow with Purpose
Leaders at Rheedlen Centers for Families and Children were trying to translate a broad vision into well-defined strategies while determining how they should define the organization's program to maximize impact. The New York City-based nonprofit was experiencing steady, even dramatic, growth under the leadership of its CEO, Geoffrey Canada. By all accounts the organization was extraordinarily successful, but Canada still wanted to evaluate the myriad programs Rheedlen offered to sharpen its strategic positioning and to create a solid growth plan and performance measures the organization could use to continue its growth and attract funding.

MY TURN Inc.: Preparing for Regional Growth
During its first 20 years, MY TURN had grown to be a leading provider of vocational and educational services to youth in southeastern Massachusetts, largely by responding to requests from neighboring communities. With documented proof that the MY TURN model worked and multiple national awards for excellence in serving youth, the organization's management and board were ready to accelerate growth and expand regionally. But faced with more opportunities than MY TURN possibly could take on, they wanted to understand which to seize—and which to let pass by.

Nurse-Family Partnership: Organizing for National Expansion
Heading into 2003, Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) was an in-demand program. The 26-year old organization had a scientifically-proven model for improving the lives of low-income, first-time mothers and their children, and it had taken NFP to 22 states, with a scattering of nearly 150 sites serving more than 12,000 mothers. But NFP’s leadership had a more ambitious vision in mind: Make NFP’s proven model available to every low-income, first-time mother in the country.

Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection: Using Data to Discover What’s Possible
Rochester, New York-based Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection (HW-SC) helps at-risk students prepare for success at work and in life. One of its chief efforts involves pairing young participants with local employers to expose the youth to meaningful part-time work. By 2005 the organization was serving more than 1,000 Rochester youth and had ambitions to do more; it committed to tripling the number of youth it served by 2010. Spring 2006 found HW-SC’s leadership still eager to pursue growth but also sobered by the challenges of funding the program and of finding sufficient part-time job opportunities for even more youth.

Larkin Street Youth Services: Sustaining Success
Helping homeless youth exit life on the street was paramount to Larkin Street Youth Services' Executive Director Anne Stanton in 2003. The organization's momentum to launch new programs was strong and opportunities abounded. But with a turbulent economy threatening to constrain funding, Stanton knew that the organization's leaders would have to be extremely thoughtful about plotting their course to sustain Larkin Street's record of success.

Our Piece of the Pie^®: Making the Biggest Differences in Hartford
In 2004, Southend Community Services (SCS, now known as Our Piece of the Pie^®) reached a crossroads. It had a strong track record of quality program execution and had developed a broad portfolio of childcare, youth, and elder services, but its largest contract was due to expire in a year—with no chance of renewal. While SCS’s budget would be considerably smaller, its leadership’s ambitions for creating social impact were not. To ensure that the organization made the greatest possible contribution to Hartford in the future, it developed a plan for migrating non-youth programs to alternate service provides and for making the most of SCS’s youth programming.

Our Piece of the Pie^®: From Data to Decision Making
Data should be a source of strategic value. Too often, however, it's a source of incomplete or misleading information. That was the case at Our Piece of the Pie^® (OPP), a Hartford, Connecticut-based youth-serving organization. The organization was collecting much of the data it needed, but its various streams of data—beneficiary, financial, and operational—were kept in different systems. OPP’s leaders couldn't tie it all together to get a comprehensive view of the organization. What they needed—and achieved—was a system that would make it easy to collect and analyze the various data to drive their decision making.

Profiles
From the report "Growth of Youth-Serving Organizations"
(All articles are in PDF format.)

From the article "How Nonprofits Get Really Big"
(Note: These profiles share the challenges that the organizations faced and the actions they took to help them fund their growth strategies. The articles are in PDF format.)

In Search of Sustainable Funding: Is Diversity of Sources Really the Answer?
Does having a wide variety of funding sources make for a healthier organization? Conventional wisdom says yes, but data from a preliminary research study suggests otherwise.