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Strategic Reporting – Who Wants to Know?

Last week I presented a workshop to local nonprofits entitled “Strategic Reporting.” I shared with the group three key concepts:

1. Know your audiences – who’s going to review these reports?

2. Different audiences may need different information, but everyone appreciates key information presented in a way that is clear, straight forward and easy to interpret.

3. If you have a strategic plan, are you reporting your plans progress on an ongoing basis to board and staff?

Knowing your audience will help you frame how you report key information. Board members require different information than staff or donors. Educating prospective donors about your organization might include information you wouldn’t need to share with current donors since they’ve already made a commitment to the organization.

The last time I blogged I touched on the importance of measuring your agency’s performance. Identify what is “key” for your agency to report performance, determine the best way to measure performance and develop meaningful report formats. Wikipedia defines key performance indicators (KPI’s) as “a measure of performance” and suggests you can identify KPI’s by asking different stakeholders “what is really important.” I divide the stakeholder interests into three core areas; mission-delivery (program), agency infrastructure (resources needed to deliver programs), and financial (earned revenue and support revenue) and generate KPI’s for each of these core areas.

You can use the SMART(ER) method to test KPI’s and how you would report performance progress:
  • Specific
  • Measureable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Time-bound
  • Evaluate
  • Reevaluate

Almost a third of the workshop attendees responded that they routinely reported against their strategic plan’s progress. Strategic reporting ultimately means that reporting links to your strategic plan. Strategic reporting includes key measures for mission-delivery, infrastructure and finances that are presented in a way that stakeholders can evaluate progress and make good decisions in a timely manner.

For the full workshop podcast go to http://www.npconnect.org/page/podcasts_landing_page/

Resources:
Liveunited.org/outcomes
Innonet.org
BoardSource.org (Dashboard Generator)
The Strategy Focused Organization by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton


Debra Box
Executive Director
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