Bridgespan and Bain & Company proprietary data reveals that effective organizations achieve superior results. Our analysis reveals that high performers realize that effective organizations are about more than structure alone. In this audio screencast with Kirk Kramer, a partner with The Bridgespan Group, we discuss what makes for effective organization and where nonprofits typically face barriers as they seek to increase their effectiveness.

Expanding a nonprofit organization by replicating its programs is a challenging prospect. The decisions you make today will heavily influence the impact your organization will be able to have down the road. But which decisions matter most? And how should you approach them?

Survey results, coupled with Bridgespan’s experience, suggest that the most important replication decisions are straightforward in theory and come with a host of conventional wisdom. They include selecting a legal expansion structure, determining where to open new sites, choosing new leaders, and deciding how to maintain quality. But the reality is more nuanced – and making the decision will lead you to consider finely tuned differences in choosing new sites, decision making roles, and more within your organization.

This article appears on Forbes.com

For a country without a modern history of philanthropy, China has been generous in the aftermath of its recent earthquakes. People with poverty fresh in their memories quickly donated some $186 million in just days, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The Chinese Red Cross Foundation's Web site was so besieged by givers that it had to be closed. The current focus of aid efforts is clear, but it’s not too soon for Chinese charities to consider their strategies post quake. Bridgespan partners Susan Colby and Nan Stone share our perspective on just how nonprofits can develop strategic clarity around their theory of social change and the impact they seek to create.

Donors tend to reward organizations with the “leanest” profiles. They also skew their funding towards programmatic activities. Nonprofit leaders, in turn, feel pressure to conform to funders’ expectations by spending as little as possible on overhead—and by under-reporting overhead costs.

These behaviors describe a vicious cycle that has already been recognized in the nonprofit sector but which persists nonetheless. This article offers steps towards breaking down the cycle, based largely on in-depth profiles of four youth-serving nonprofits that have managed to expand their capacities in critical ways despite the cycle’s pressures.

Job seekers often make the mistake of assuming that determining whether or not a particular job is a good fit for them is largely the responsibility of the potential employer. As a candidate, you have an important role in assessing fit, particularly at the senior leadership level, and especially if you are making a career change from the for-profit to the nonprofit sector. Organizational cultures in nonprofits are often quite different from corporate cultures, and it is important to try to gauge whether the new culture will be a rewarding change for you or simply too much of a change.

Through Bridgestar’s talent-matching work and a set of in-depth interviews with senior nonprofit managers, including both long-time sector leaders and those who have recently bridged from the for-profit into the nonprofit sector, we have identified some practices that consistently seem to increase the chances of finding the right job fit. These practices can be applied in two categories: learning about yourself and learning about your potential employer.