Book review: Forces for Good by Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather Mcleod
As a book lover starting a new role, it was with pleasure that I dipped into the PNZ library over the summer break and pulled out a few key reads - both from here and internationally. The first I wanted to share was called Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits. The book is based on research conducted by Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant who undertook an in depth study to identify twelve leading nonprofits in the US who achieved high impact and the common factors that contributed to this success. Though written in 2008, the study has a number of findings that may be of interest and continue to be useful for us to consider here.
Methodology
Definition: Unlike businesses, which can have comparable success metrics (such as bottom-line results or stock performance), at the time of writing the authors found that there was no universal definition of what social impact meant. They decided to define impact relatively, as it is so contextual in this sector. This meant a two-part definition:
A measurement of concrete outputs - such as the number of people served or products produced. They asked the question “did the organisation achieve substantial and sustained results at the national or international level?”
The second part was qualitative, and looked at whether the organisation had impacted a larger system, such as government policies or common practices in their field - they asked the question “did the organisation have an impact on an entire system?”
Significantly, the authors did not equate scale of impact with growth, recognising that “a nonprofit can achieve large-scale social impact without expanding beyond a single site” and they removed budget size as an indicator for measuring success (which they saw as measuring an input (funding) compared to an output (results)).
Further defined scope: The authors surveyed thousands of nonprofit CEOs and conducted more than 60 interviews to select the twelve that became the focus of this study. Certain for-purpose organisations, such as schools and food banks, were excluded because the researchers were interested in those that were seeking impact beyond their immediate community. In addition, they focused on organisations that had been founded between 1964 and 1994, to help identify those organisations that had grown from “zero to great” within a short timeframe and excluded those that were less than ten years old as there was not yet sufficient evidence of sustainable impact. Entities were further scoped by needing to hold “501(c)(3) status” - i.e. this is a legal status with tax benefits that defines “those entities that exist primarily to serve the broader public interest” that were founded in the US. This excluded, for example, churches, grantmaking foundations, and organisations that were founded overseas.
Phase 1: National Peer Survey
A survey was sent to nearly 2800 CEOs asking them to nominate up to “five not-for-profits that have had the most significant impact at the national or international level in the last thirty-five years” and to explain why they thought that. The survey produced around 500 responses and hundreds of nominations.
Phase 2: Field-Expert Interviews
These nominations were then considered in consultation with a panel of experts who had both a deep subject matter knowledge (e.g. in environmental issues or the education sector) and were relatively objective, e.g. academics, journalists, foundation staff and thought leaders. The panel participated in two rounds of interviews, which assisted with discussing, analysing and ultimately ranking the nominated organisations. The panel also made recommendations for additional impactful nonprofits that were not included in the survey results.
At this point, the researchers narrowed their list down to thirty-five nonprofits that demonstrated the most impact. The list was further narrowed to twelve to represent a broad cross-section of the nonprofit world - “we deliberately selected a diverse portfolio of nonprofits for further study, picking those with varying funding mixes, organizational structures, program offerings, issue areas, and geographical locations. We felt that patterns that emerged from a diverse group would be more robust and more useful to the sector as a whole”
Phase 3: Case Study Research and Analysis
The researchers studied these selected 12 organisations in depth for over a year. This included desktop research to compile publicly available information, interviews with senior leadership, including the founder and / or CEO, site visits to headquarters and any affiliates, and studying internal documents (e.g. annual reports and financial information). Interview questions were both broad (e.g. governance, management, marketing strategy), and open-ended (e.g. the person’s views on how they achieve impact). This data was summarized and coded by theme.
Phase 4: Pattern Identification and Testing
The researchers analysed all of the case studies to identify patterns or practices that cut-across organisations and that they believed contributed to the impact of the organisations. This was tested against data from interviews, expert insights and other data, and theories were tested with practitioners and thought-leaders. They identified 6 key practices (discussed further below).
The Twelve Organisations - table on pages 15-17 [note that these figures are from the time of the study]
Organisation, Founded, Location
Revenues, FY2005
What it Does
Examples of Impact
America’s Second Harvest, 1979, Chicago, I11
$543M (including value of in-kind donations)
Distributes donated food and grocery products to grassroots nonprofits, advocates for hunger policies.
More than 200 food banks in the network distribute two billion pounds of food to more than fifty thousand local nonprofits, feeding twenty-five million hungry Americans each year.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1981, Washington D.C
$13m
Performs research and analysis on state and federal budget and fiscal policy; advocates on behalf of low-income individuals
Protected billions of dollars in federal benefits and allocations to programs for the poor; works with about thirty state affiliates and six thousand local nonprofits; established state and international budget projects.
City Year, 1988, Boston, Massachusetts
$42m
Builds democracy through citizen service, leadership, and social entrepreneurship, advocates for national service policy.
Youth corps now in seventeen US cities and in South Africa, with eight thousand alumni, influenced adoption of AmeriCorps, enabling seventy thousand volunteers to serve annually; helped build fields of youth service and social entrepreneurship.
Environmental Defense, 1967, New York, NY
$69m
Creates innovative solutions to environmental problems through research, advocacy, and creative use of market tools and partnerships.
Influenced critical political environmental policies, including Clean Air Act and Kyoto Protocol, engages five hundred thousand active members; helps such companies as McDonald’s, FedEx, and Wal-Mart become more sustainable.
Exploratorium, 1969, San Francisco, California
$44m
Museum of science, art, and human perception designed as a model for new forms of education.
Five hundred thousand visitors annually; reaches 20m people through exhibits at 124 partner museums and website; has influenced global movements for interactive science centers and museums.
Habitat for Humanity International, 1976, Americus, Ga.
$1Bn, including global affiliates
Seeks to eliminate poverty, housing and homelessness by building houses, raising awareness and advocating for change.
Through 2100 global affiliates in 100 countries, has built 275,000 homes, housing 1 million people, engages millions of volunteers in the US and abroad.
The Heritage Foundation, 1973, Washington D.C.
$40m
Formulates and promotes conservative policy based on principles of free enterprise, freedom, traditional values, limited government, and a strong defense.
Formulated policy agenda for Reagan administration; helped lead conservative revolution in Congress in 1990s; works with 2500 state affiliates; engages 275,000 individual members.
National Council of La Raza, 1968, Washington D.C.
$29m
Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organisation. Works to improve opportunities for all Latinos.
Helped build field of more than 300 local grassroots affiliates; program innovation in education, health, civil rights for Hispanics; influenced critical legislation on immigration.
Self-Help, 1980, Durham, N.C.
$75m
Works on economic development through lending, asset development, and research and advocacy.
Provided more than $4.5bn in loans to 50,000 small businesses and low income individuals through corporate partnerships, led national anti-predatory lending campaign and legislative reform in 22 states.
Share our Strength, 1984, Washington D.C.
$24m
Inspires and engages individuals and businesses to share their strengths to end childhood hunger
Raised $200m in 20 years for hunger relief groups through Taste the Nation events in 60 cities; engages 1 million volunteers through Great America Bake Sale; known for innovative cross-sector partnerships
Teach for America, 1990, New York, NY
$41m
National teaching corps of recent college graduates who spend two years in needy schools and become advocates for education reform.
12,000 corp members engaged since inception have reached 2.5 million students and created a vanguard for education reform, has influenced teacher training and credential system.
Youth Build U.S.A., Boston, Massachusetts
$18m
Low-income youth ages 16 to 24 learn job and leadership skills by building affordable community housing while earning a GED.
Engaged more than 60,000 youth to produce 15,000 units of housing since inception; works with 226 affiliates; influenced national legislation to create $645m in federal funding.
Mythbusting
The authors themselves were surprised to find that these common ideas about what makes an impactful nonprofit organisation were not supported by their evidence:
Perfect management: the organisations studied were “not all well managed in a traditional sense” and this was not seen as a defining impact factor by the authors, though they clarify that some management is necessary.
Brand-name awareness: Though some of the organisations studied were household names, there were varied levels of investment in marketing, with some not investing much effort at all.
A breakthrough new idea: There was variation across the organisations studied, with some creating and using new ideas and others adopting and tweaking existing ideas. The authors’ view was that it was the implementation or execution while innovating those ideas that really mattered to impact.
Textbook mission statements: While all organisations studied were driven by missions, vision and shared values, only a few spent time fine-tuning it on paper “most are too busy living it”.
High ratings on conventional metrics: The organisations studied did not necessarily rank highly on “traditional” measures for nonprofits - which in the States at the time included, for example, “Charity Navigator”. Many of these websites focused on which groups have the lowest overhead ratios compared to assessing which have the most impact.
Large budgets: The researchers discovered that “size doesn’t matter much” when making an impact. Some have achieved a great impact with large budgets and some had smaller budgets. This wasn’t a defining factor.
What actually made a difference and created impact?
The authors outlined six key factors that made a difference and created impact - in particular, that “the secret to success lies in how great organisations mobilize every sector of society - government, business, nonprofits, and the public - to be a force for good. In other words, greatness has more to do with how nonprofits work outside the boundaries of their organisations than how they manage their own internal operations”.
Advocate and Serve: High impact organisations are involved in both advocacy and programming / service delivery. While they may start with one or the other, they later add advocacy to have more impact at a system level or add programming / service delivery to “supercharge their policy”.
Make markets work: Great nonprofits find ways to work with markets and “help businesses do well while doing good”. This may include, for example, influencing business practices, build corporate partnerships, and develop earned-income ventures - i.e. all ways of leveraging market forces to achieve social change on a grander scale.
Inspire evangelists: Don’t treat volunteers as just member subs or free labour but create meaningful ways to engage people in emotional experiences that help them connect to the organisation’s core mission and values. People offer not just time, money and guidance but are also potential evangelists for their cause. High impact organisations build and sustain strong communities to help them achieve their larger goals.
Nurture nonprofit networks: “Although most groups pay lip service to collaboration, many of them really see other nonprofits as competition for scarce resources. But high-impact organizations help the competition succeed, building networks of nonprofit allies and devoting remarkable time and energy to advancing their larger field. They freely share wealth, expertise, talent and power with their peers, not because they are saints but because it is in their self-interest to do so.”
Master the art of adaptation: All high-impact organisations studied were highly adaptive, modifying tactics for greater success. This meant embracing innovation, making mistakes along the way, and “learning, listening and adapting their approach based on external cues - allowing them to sustain their impact and stay relevant”.
Share leadership: While many of the organisations had charismatic CEOs, the authors noted that this did not also mean an inflated ego. The CEOs in the organsiations studied in the book were strategic but importantly also knew how and when to share power. They had cultivated a strong second-in-command executive team and distributed leadership throughout their organisation and network, empowering others to lead.
The following chapters in the book are dedicated to understanding each of these 6 key factors in more detail, with a number of case studies from the organisations studied and practical recommendations on how to incorporate the factors within an organisation.
Book reviews is a new segment in our newsletter and we welcome contributions from members who want to share their latest insights with the sector.