Nonprofit Benchmarking With Data Envelopment Analysis

Benchmarking nonprofit performance can be challenging, constraining the ways nonprofits can use operational data to learn from each other and highlight organizational progress. Valid output or outcome data are scarce, and there is much to learn about measuring performance even when these data are available. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a mathematical linear programming technique that can be used to measure performance in a way that not only produces valid efficiency scores but also allows for benchmarking nonprofits with similar service missions. Using financial and production data from the nonprofit transportation sector, we walk through an example to explore DEA as a tool to measure and benchmark nonprofits. We conclude with suggestions for practice, emphasizing that DEA is useful for stakeholders looking to benchmark nonprofits by underscoring production and performance.

EXPRESS: Linking Marketing to Nonprofit Performance

The critical role of marketing in driving nonprofit performance has been recognized for decades. However, in practice, there has been a disturbingly weak acknowledgment and/or implementation of marketing practices across nonprofits to date. Marketing is often perceived as an avoidable and costly overhead. The issue is complicated by the fact that nonprofit performance is relatively difficult to measure and may often comprise of multiple tangible and intangible outcomes with different (linear and nonlinear) functional forms. Furthermore, nonprofit performance outcomes often depend on behavioral and attitudinal changes of the target segment. The authors address these challenges by presenting a methodology to link marketing efforts to nonprofits’ mission-based performance outcome(s). The authors apply their approach with data from a large nonprofit and find empirical support for the fact that marketing can play a pivotal and significant role in improving nonprofits’ mission-based performance outcomes. The findings help present a strong case for nonprofit leaders and policymakers to fund and treat marketing as a necessary investment to drive nonprofit entities’ performance. Implications for conceptual, practical, and substantive contributions and future research directions are discussed.

Connecting Group Dynamics, Governance, and Performance: Evidence From Charter School Boards

In this article, we build on the existing literatures on small group dynamics and public and nonprofit governance by exploring the link between small group dynamics, governance, and nonprofit performance. The results provide evidence that nonprofit governing boards can improve organizational performance by improving their governance behaviors. Specifically, we link survey data from Minnesota nonprofit charter school board members to hard measures of organizational performance in a path analysis predicting school-level math and reading proficiency levels. We find that boards exhibiting better group dynamics are more active in key governance areas, and that active governance is linked to increased organizational outcomes. Our findings advance scholarly understanding of nonprofit governance by identifying a pathway between nonprofit board governing dynamics and sustainable organizational performance gains. We conclude with practical advice on how nonprofit boards can increase their organizational performance through improved small group dynamics.