How Your Nonprofit Provides Value
Recently, Seth Godin wrote about valuable contributions and the fact that so many leaders and organizations don’t actually know what value they're creating.
It’s an important read, no matter what industry you work in.
The word value itself has become so overused that its meaning is entirely subjective.
In the nonprofit world - for organizations large and small - we tend to see "value" as "impact."
We create logic models and theories of change and then exhaust ourselves trying to move beyond measuring inputs and outputs into identifying and measuring the actual effects of our work in the lives of the people and communities we serve.
In some cases, this may be data that's easy to come by - in others, it's much more complicated.
Don't get me wrong - using evidence-based approaches and understanding how our programs contribute to making lives and communities better matters. We should strive to build and sustain programs and partnerships that work and let go of ones that show no measurable improvements.
But whatever straight line we think we're drawing between our work and that impact is constantly intersecting with other lines - other organizations, systems, situations, environments, needs, resources - that shape the world and identities of the people we serve.
Which means that the impact we're saying we create might not be the most important or pressing thing in the minds and lives of the people we serve.
Helpful, sure.
Meaningful at certain life stages, in certain moments, or in certain contexts, absolutely.
But highly valued? Not always.
In fact, sometimes the value we create - and that people experience - is more about who we are than the specific programs or things we do.
Defining a clear, strategic organizational identity and ethos enables greater understanding among the people we serve and the people who power our organizations about:
The unique role our organization plays
What they should expect from us and count on us to do
How we'll show up
Why they belong with us, our mission, and our movement
So, let's keep working to understand how we drive value through programmatic impact.
But let's not forget that the value we create also relies on knowing who we are and how we show up for the people and communities we serve