Measuring Success

© Rob hyrons - Fotolia.com
How do you measure (and report) your success?

A mentor of mine always reminded me that “you drive your business in the direction of your numbers.” All sorts of other books and articles say it in a different way, but the one I like best is “if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there.”

This thoughtful article from Nonprofit Quarterly reminds all non-profit managers that they have it harder than the for-profit business world. In the commercial arena, profit is the most agreed-upon metric to judge your success. But in our world, there are other measures: How you impact your community, or how you build it; more subscribers, or members, more repeat donors, more tickets sold.

It shocks me how often I talk with managers and ask simple questions such as, “What are your fundraising goals for this year, and how does that compare to last year?” and they cannot answer it. And what I’ve been preaching for the last four years is that CRM is all about giving you the tools to measure yourself against your goals on a daily basis.

Point is, if you’re not in touch with your crucial numbers or “key performance indicators” (KPI), this article is a must-read.

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