The MyGamePlan.Org team releases its White Paper on “Why Measuring Risk in Nonprofits Leads to Improved Levels of Resiliency, Effectiveness, and Sustainability”

 Click here to download a copy of the White Paper 

Lori Bonn of Bonnventures and I are pleased to release the White Paper examining the value of the Risk Navigation Tool software that we have developed to help strengthen nonprofits and aid the conversation between grantor and grantee.  The impetus behind the creation of the software arises out of our work with nonprofits, having helped them over the last couple of years face the growing complexity of nonprofit operations while delivering on their mission with increasingly limited resources.   Also, as a result of over two decades of working with nonprofit organizations, we are finding a compelling need for an interface for grantors and grantees to carry on an assessment and benchmarking process that is noninvasive and is not punitive, but rather collaborative, transparent, and nimble in implementing innovative approaches to delivering on the mission of the nonprofit while building organizational capacity and effectiveness.

Recently, the corporate foundation of the Hospital Corporation of America engaged Patmos to use the Risk Navigation Tool among 50 of its nonprofit grantees.  The intent of the project was to provide for nonprofit evaluation and improvement towards the goal of more resilient organizations.  We deliver to nonprofits through the issuing of a “seat pass” a set of assessment questions that helps stimulate thinking about the framework of resiliency and organizational health and the social value being created by the nonprofit.  The software leads users through a series of questions, with weighting percentages focusing upon financial and governance practices.  The software determines a resiliency score based upon how the organization’s answers compared to best practice benchmarks and the field.  We understand resilience as the capability of an organization to anticipate risk, limit impact through planning and bounce back through adaptability and growth in the face of turbulent change.  An action plan is also produced at helping the nonprofit recognize and react, strategically plan and prioritize next steps toward the goal of greater resiliency.

The result is a quick to use and transparent tool that allows multiple users interpret the assessment and course correct in a collaborative effort, especially among board and management.  Several of the nonprofit CEOs in an evaluation and a report out session held following their use of the software, stated that the key benefits of the tool is that it provided a framework for evaluation that quickly identified the priorities of the nonprofit and provided detailed action steps towards increasing resiliency and sustainability.  They also saw value in offering strategic and operational benchmarking with the ability to compare the organization to others, both in terms of budget size and sector.   This feedback was music to my ears as it was part of my intent behind the tool’s creation.  I remember when I was a director of a nonprofit I was constantly submitting reports and completing in surveys.  It was a one way conversation. I rarely got any information back from the process, other than continued funding which of course was essential.  But, rarely did I get something back that could help us as a learning organization improve the overall health of the organization.  For the granting institution -- HCA Foundation in this case --  the provision of an aggregate report of all the collective data as a whole allowed them to measure the pool of their grantees as an evaluative learning tool.  We are excited about this tool’s benefit to grantor and grantee alike as we introduce “resiliency level” into the discussion as a helpful aid in the evaluative learning process for effective grantmaking and for facilitating dialogue between grantors and grantees and within the particular organization among management and staff.

Click here to download a copy of the White Paper