Nonprofit Performance Measurement and Management

Social Enterprise Newsletter, Fall 2001

Top nonprofit executives from as far away as Australia gathered at Harvard Business School this past June to participate in a new Executive Education program, Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations (PMNO). Developed jointly by the HBS Initiative on Social Enterprise (ISE) and Harvard's Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, the program is designed to help nonprofit managers address the challenging work of creating a performance measurement and management system for their organizations.

"We developed this program to give nonprofit leaders a chance to step back and take an in-depth look at how to think about and measure organizational effectiveness," says PMNO Cochair Allen Grossman, Professor of Management Practice at HBS. "This new program responds to a timely and pressing need in the nonprofit sector."

By focusing specifically on organizational performance, PMNO complements ISE's two flagship Executive Education programs: Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management (SPNM), for nonprofit senior executives, and Governing for Nonprofit Excellence (GNE), for nonprofit board leaders.

"It was particularly gratifying," Grossman adds, "that out of the 56 participants, over one-quarter were enthusiastic graduates of SPNM and GNE, and returned to HBS for this very focused management offering. We are excited to add PMNO to the ISE program portfolio."

Participants responded enthusiastically to the program's content and applicability to their work. Cheryl Vince Whitman, senior vice president of the Massachusetts-based Education Development Center, comments, "It was an important and enriching experience. The program provided me with new and innovative ways to think about aligning our organizational mission and resources. It also reenergized my enthusiasm for and commitment to my efforts in the nonprofit sector."

PMNO, which draws on faculty from HBS, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, marks the second ISE Executive Education program developed in partnership with the Hauser Center. The first was Strategic Giving, introduced in 2000.

The next offering of PMNO is June 12-15, 2002. For more information about this or other ISE Executive Education programs, visit the HBS Executive Education Web site.