Nonprofit Articles

Statistics are not just for researchers and mathematicians, companies are using statistics to predict trends in the market every day, as real-time data is bigger and faster.

Nonprofits need to learn to embrace failure – not as an end, but as a means to an end. Failure is a powerful tool, as it provides the chance to get better. Nonprofits that limit themselves by their own boxes or fear will never achieve their potential. And, if a nonprofit’s response to failure is to continue to do the same thing, they will wither and fade away.

Data analytics refers to the degrees of analysis conducted on data collected; data visualization is the pictorial interpretation of those analytics. As such, visualization is only as effective as the thought and preparation put into the analytics. When done properly, with the right analytics as its backbone, data visualization is a useful planning and monitoring tool.

When hiring, most companies and organizations look for highly skilled individuals to join their teams and help push their growth to its greatest potential. But, what if you knew that individual intelligence had little to do with your organization’s collective intelligence – would your hiring practices change?

Mission effectiveness asks the question, how well did an organization carry out its mission? It speaks to the impact of the mission on the community it serves. But only by knowing what a nonprofit seeks to change can you begin to assess whether or not has made an impact. Mission, planning, and evaluation are inextricably linked.

The idea behind evaluative learning is that it sees the evaluation part as critical to organizational growth and success, not as merely an accountability issue. When an organization focuses on learning (on its internal need for information), it will be eager to incorporate evaluation as an on-going learning tool. When evaluative learning is at the core of an organization’s DNA, it is able to be strategic in all of its direction, decisions, and resources.