For many nonprofit leaders, "doing more with less" has become the unofficial job description. Demand for services continues to grow. Funding is increasingly competitive and often restricted. Staff capacity remains limited while administrative requirements continue to expand. Funders want greater accountability and stronger evidence of impact. And while technology has given organizations access to more data and insights than ever before, many leaders still struggle to turn tha

For more than 15 years, I have encouraged nonprofit leaders to answer a question that can fundamentally change how they manage programs, communicate with funders, and allocate resources: What does it cost for one person to successfully achieve the outcome your program exists to create?

Philanthropic organizations face an understandable temptation to address every urgent need they encounter. Communities experience interconnected challenges involving financial security, health, housing, education, workforce development, food access, and many other issues. A funder may see worthy opportunities across all of them.

For years, nonprofit leaders have heard the same message from funders: Show us your impact. That expectation has pushed many organizations to collect more information about their programs, participants, services, and results. Nonprofits now maintain donor records, participant assessments, case notes, spreadsheets, program logs, surveys, financial reports, and grant reporting data. Yet collecting information and using information are two very different capabilities. In the Sta

For decades, nonprofit success has often been described through measures of organizational growth. A larger budget, more employees, new locations, and higher participation numbers could all signal that an organization was thriving. Those measures still provide useful information. Yet they reveal only part of the story. A nonprofit can serve more people without producing better outcomes. It can receive a major grant without developing a dependable funding model. It can launch