LET'S DO GOOD,
BETTER.
Building Good Bones
The social impact sector has historically rewarded doing more (growth), over doing better (effectiveness).
As a result, organizations are compelled to prioritize growth while underinvesting in improving effectiveness.
This negatively impacts the community and front-line staff first and most.
Eventually, chronic underinvestment in organizational effectiveness leads to critical issues (e.g. staffing, funding, culture) that require urgent attention at a steep cost.
Our vision is to help create a sector that encourages consistent and proactive investment in doing better by providing organizations with the resources and support to prioritize improving how they do their work.
A sector that prioritizes quality over quantity is a sector that puts its people, communities, and impact first.
Backed by research
" In our consulting work at the Bridgespan Group, we frequently find that our clients agree with the idea of improving infrastructure and augmenting their management capacity, yet they are loath to actually make these changes because they do not want to increase their overhead spending. But underfunding overhead can have disastrous effects, finds the Nonprofit Overhead Cost Study, a five year research project conducted by the Urban Institute’s National Center for Charitable Statistics and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.
The researchers examined more than 220,000 IRS Form 990s and conducted 1,500 in-depth surveys of organizations with revenues of more than $100,000. Among their many dismaying findings: nonfunctioning computers, staff members who lacked the training needed for their positions, and, in one instance, furniture so old and beaten down that the movers refused to move it. The effects of such limited overhead investment are felt far beyond the office: nonfunctioning computers cannot track program outcomes and show what is working and what is not; poorly trained staff cannot deliver quality services to beneficiaries."
Source: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_nonprofit_starvation_cycle