An effective nonprofit sector can be a powerful force for change as well as a source of human inspiration. Three key levers can influence a nonprofit's effectiveness, and ultimately, its ability to have impact: solid strategy, access to appropriately stuctured capital, and talent that begins with leaders and senior managers.
The articles below share the Bridgespan Group's best thinking from the past 10 years on these key levers. The articles examine such essential topics as identifying nonprofit funding models, building stronger management teams, and creating plans to accomplish nonprofit goals. You can view the articles individually, or download a single PDF of all the pieces (Requires Adobe Acrobat 9).
We would also like to express our deep appreciation to Stanford Social Innovation Review, Harvard Business Review, and The Nonprofit Quarterly for their ongoing support and assistance in making The Best of Bridgespan a reality.
Strategy
Galvanizing Philanthropy
To strengthen their impact in the world, philanthropic investors need to rigorously define their goals, be realistic about how to achieve them, and commit to continual, systematic improvement.
Delivering on the Promise of Nonprofits
Nonprofit leaders face unique challenges in achieving results, but a growing number are showing it can be done—by rigorously confronting questions related to strategy, capital, and talent.
More Bang for the Buck
Recognizing that increasing productivity could be a powerful way for nonprofit organizations to multiply the impact of their work, the authors explore how three nonprofits succeeded in reducing costs without sacrificing the quality of their services.
Zeroing in on Impact
In an era of declining resources, nonprofits need to clarify their intended impact.
Going to Scale
To make replication successful, nonprofit leaders should think carefully about the steps they must take to ensure the success of new sites.
Funding
The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle
A vicious cycle is leaving nonprofits so hungry for decent infrastructure that they can barely function as organizations. To break the cycle, funders should take the lead.
Ten Nonprofit Funding Models
For-profit executive use business models as a shorthand way to understand how companies are built and sustained. This article identifies ten funding models that offer nonprofit executives similar ways to define the funding mechanisms for their organizations.
Money to Grow On
In the for-profit world, the term "investment" has clear meaning and investors have sophisticated techniques for spotting and growing the most promising companies. By better translating for-profit concepts, donors can learn how to scout out and grow the best nonprofits.
How Nonprofits Get Really Big
Between 1970 and 2007, more than 200,000 nonprofits opened in the U.S., but only 144 of them reached $50M in annual revenue. Most got big by doing two things: They raised the bulk of their money from a single source, and they tailored their organizations to the needs of their primary funding sources.
Should Nonprofits Seek Profits (Fee required to download full article)
Eager to reduce their dependence on fundraising, more and more nonprofits are launching earned-income ventures—with disappointing results.
Leadership
Leadership Priorities: What Facets of Management Shouldn't You Delegate?
There are two critical areas of responsibility that should not be assigned to anyone but the top manager: aligning staff and stakeholders around priorities and developing the organization's leaders.
Finding Leaders for America's Nonprofits
More than ever, nonprofits are looking for talented leaders with critical functional skills, and they are open to finding these people in the for-profit workforce. But sector-switchers must find a good cultural fit, be clear about their values, and understand the trade-offs associated with moving from the for-profit world to the nonprofit sector.
Strongly Led, Under-managed
How can visionary nonprofits make the critical transition to stronger management?
Who Decides? Mapping Power and Decision Making in Nonprofits (Subscription Required)
How an organization makes decisions can reveal a lot about how that organization performs.
The Leadership Deficit
By the middle of the decade, nonprofits will need to find hundreds of thousands of new executives. And organizations will need to recruit from and increasingly wide range of groups, from business to the military to retirees.