Blog Posts: Charity Evaluation

Posted November 11, 2010 by Al Mueller 0 comments

A money manager recently asked me: “Is it difficult for Excellence in Giving to find philanthropists who will pay for charity evaluations?” The simple answer is “yes.” Although blogs and news articles are beginning to recognize the field of philanthropic advising, most big and small philanthropists do not recognize the value of paying experts to evaluate potential grantees. They do want to support the best organizations but typically balk at the idea of putting significant money into the necessary research that identifies high-performing, well-managed, difference-making nonprofits. Most of the time that hesitation results in donations given to a number of “good” organizations but not necessarily the “best.” Sometimes it means donors unwittingly support scandalous frauds.

Last week an Excellence in Giving client sent a grant request from the Texas Highway Patrol Association & Museum (THPA) to our research team for review. A couple hours later we had scandal, suspicious money trails, and felonies in the report.

Tags: Charity Evaluation, Charity Evaluations, Nonprofit Evaluation

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Posted August 17, 2010 by Al Mueller 0 comments

None of us wants to be judged for not doing what we never tried to do. But it happens all the time. One nonprofit I recently critiqued responded with this exact complaint, “You can’t say we have failed to become partially self-sustaining when we have not made that an explicit goal for the last ten years.” The complaint was justified. I had to modify my critique to read: if a donor wants a self-sustaining model, this organization has not developed it in the last ten years.

So how do we create a ‘fair’ performance standard for measuring nonprofit outcomes? In the world of business investments, analysts can run the numbers and get a clear record of expenses, revenue, and profit. In the nonprofit world, measuring performance is more elusive. There is no absolute standard that applies equally to organizations operating in different program and geographic areas. The only fair approach is comparing the relative performance of organizations in the same sectors.

Tags: Charity Evaluation, Charity Evaluations, Due Diligence, Nonprofit Evaluation, Performance Standard

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Posted April 28, 2010 by Al Mueller 0 comments

“We’ve reached a total of 2.5 million people.” I read claims like this one from many nonprofit organizations. The sheer size of the number is intended to impress potential donors. However, totals don’t tell the whole story. One family ministry that has reached 2.5 million people in the last 34 years actually is in decline. The number of clients served has been dropping by thousands since 2006. In more alarming fashion donations have increased 18% during that time (significant for a $40 million operation) while clients served has declined 7%. Those trendlines tell the story that matters today. The organization’s heyday has come and gone.

An informed practitioner of philanthropic due diligence is not easily taken by totals. The most valuable data is found in a time series not a “total” column.

Tags: Charity Evaluation, Charity Evaluations, Due Diligence, Nonprofit Performance, Performance Standard

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