If I had a nickel for every time I heard a nonprofit professional say they were building the plane while flying it, I could buy my own fully-built jet! In the context of program design, what does this even mean? Is “building the plane while flying it” just code for “making it up as we[…]
In my last two posts, I have been exploring how to articulate and align what I see as the four elements of a nonprofit organization’s strategy: Why: Vision statements often express an organization’s “why.” It describes why you exist and do the work you do. This is the change or result you seek. What: A[…]
In my last post, I compared four elements of your organization’s identity and strategy to four tires on a car. The tires must be equally and properly inflated, pointing in the same direction, and with enough tread to grip the road if you expect them to get you to your destination. In this post, I’ll[…]
Alignment Issues Someone once told me that one way to know if your car is out of alignment is to take your hands off the wheel on a flat, straight (and empty) stretch of road and see if the car slowly glides straight ahead or if it pulls to one side. If your car is[…]
We’re continuing our series on performance management by handing the mic back to Megan Ondr-Cooper of CASA of St. Louis. This week, Megan will share the questions she and her teammates asked along their journey toward a meaningful performance management system. As Sarah shared in her post last week, performance management is a system and[…]
This is my second post in a series about Evaluability Assessment (EA). Last time, I introduced EA and its key components. Much of what we do at The IllumiLab is driven by the same motives and the same processes as Evaluability Assessment, including the articulation and assessment of the program theory. Every program has a[…]
Many of us do work that is inherently and inarguably valuable. There is an intuitive and logical connection between the work we do and some larger, later good. Yet our actual, direct impact is hard to define or know. For years, these programs have been funded based on their face value, but many funders now[…]