Goal Setting For Nonprofits
Goal setting for nonprofits requires a clear understanding of your mission, setting the right goals, and tracking your progress.
As nonprofit leaders, we have big goals for our organizations and work hard to achieve them.
When you have a goal, it’s tempting to run straight toward it, especially when you’re a nimble, enthusiastic team striving to achieve an important mission. Big goals, however, need the muscle of a strategy behind them.
In other words, achieving results for your organization isn’t about setting goals - it’s about setting the right goals.
After working with dozens of nonprofit clients over the past 15 years, I can tell you that strategic goal-setting does not happen organically. It requires the intentional effort of a group of leaders and constituents with a firm understanding of the organization’s mission to determine the right goals to get there.
When Setting Goals, Keep Your Mission Front-of-Mind
Every goal you set for your organization should aim at forwarding its mission. Every goal must also be measurable - more on this later. For now, know that structuring your goals in ways that allow you to measure your progress is key to achieving your mission long-term.
There are three types of goals that I recommend nonprofits consider to generate mission-impacting results.
Three Types of Goals
Milestone Goal: An achievement you intend to reach by a certain point in time or after having taken a specific action is a milestone goal. For instance, you may set a milestone goal of conducting five meetings and one review by the end of the year.
Numeric Goal: Numeric goals are number-based and typically correspond to your audience. These goals are best used for tracking and achieving a specific number of participants or people reached. For example, you may set a numeric goal of serving 200 individuals.
Percent Change Goal: When setting a percent change goal, you’re establishing the percentage of change your organization intends to generate based on a proposed program. This goal type is best used to show the increase or decrease in the rate of participation. For instance, your percent change goal may be to increase colon cancer screenings by 10%.
“You can’t improve what you don’t measure.”
Tracking Your Goals is Key to Reaching Them
The consistent measurement and tracking of your goals is the only path toward progress. Doing so is the equivalent of making sure you didn’t take a wrong turn during a road trip. Demonstrating your progress - and course correcting when necessary - puts you in the driver’s seat, so the speak. You’ll know you’re on track to meet your goals and can convey that progress confidently to your internal stakeholders and fellow leadership team as well as donors, grant recipients, and any other potential funders.
There are several ways to measure and track your progress toward your goal. Here are a few I recommend.
Survey: Surveys are the easiest, and often the most cost-effective measurement tool organizations can access. They can help gauge community awareness, knowledge retention, - and direct participant satisfaction. And the data you collect can be extremely valuable as you continue goal setting.
Formal Evaluation: A formal evaluation is an excellent option when you’re measuring progress toward qualitative goals, quantitative goals, and the performance of participants in your programming. As such, these evaluations tend to be industry-focused, well-defined, and based on nationally-recognized industry standards.
Data Collection: If you’re measuring a significant amount of data, you need a system of tools that allows you to manage the process. Data collection requires sophisticated software systems and, as a result, is the most expensive form of goal measurement. But, it’s also the most reliable for measuring statistical data collection, output numbers, percentage change, and just about any numbers-based information you intend to collect.
Goal Setting for Nonprofits Takes Time and Intention But Is Well Worth the Effort
Taking the time to establish your organizational goals and implement an attainable tool to measure outcomes will not only help you evaluate your program’s success but will also help strengthen grant applications. Funders will appreciate your accountability, motivation, transparency, and objective evaluation, reassuring them that their dollars are being spent responsibly to best serve the community.
About The Author
Katie Schock is a dual-disciplined grants and development professional with over 15 years of expertise serving local foundations and a variety of not-for-profit organizations ranging from human services to intellectual disabilities to the arts. She also serves as a voting Board Member of two Foundations and is the Executive Director of one of the top Family Foundations in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.