Technology Use and Financial Vibrancy

Web-based services, communication, HR, accounting and cost accounting, and program monitoring all depend on effective and efficient information technology (IT).  Not only does IT underlie and tie together a wide range of elements that contribute to financial vibrancy, but also can contribute to lower costs and an enhanced ability to take advantage of financial opportunities quickly. 

Organizations with effective IT strategies have access to information, are able to network quickly and effectively and can share resources such as training and administrative capacity and the knowledge they develop.

Strategic Technology Planning

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Project Planning and Implementation

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Web-Based Services

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Human Resources Management and Financial Vibrancy

An agency’s human resources are its main asset.  The right people with the right training in the right place are invaluable to the quality of program and so the value the organization produces and in attracting resources.  Supporting people through training and other sound management practices is an investment in building organizational capacity. 

At the same time an organization’s human capital also translates into social capital. Networks of relationships with people and organizations present opportunities for leveraging, innovation and new pockets of resourcing.

Recruitment and Retention of Talented Staff

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Fostering Professional Development

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Leadership Capacity Building

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Communications Financial Vibrancy

Financially vibrant organizations are able to tell the story of who they are and what they do for community, clients, employees and funders in a compelling way. While every one is able to communicate mission and vision, fewer organizations can tell a compelling story about how they are making a difference.

For for-profit firms, a ‘value proposition’ is a short story that sets out clearly what the organization produces and why the consumer should purchase it. Nonprofits can tell similar stories, what outcomes they produce and why a funder should invest in this work.

Getting your message out as an organization, and developing an identity in your community is essential to your agency’s financial vibrancy.

Public Relations, Marketing & Branding

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Government Relations

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Results-Monitoring and Financial Vibrancy

Financially vibrant organizations are able to describe the value they produce in the world and tell effective stories to funders and to their communities about whose lives have improved, and how, as a result of their work. 

Increasingly, funding is as much driven by results as it is by needs.  Program Evaluation (or more simply results monitoring) is no longer optional; it is essential to the long-term financial viability of most programs and services - and by extension the financial health of the organizations that provide them. 

Program evaluation contributes to financial vibrancy by:

• Demonstrating organization and program effectiveness and accountability, which are essential for building partnerships, developing new sources of revenues, and attracting funders
• Helping to figure out what is working and perhaps as importantly why it is working
• Helping organizations see what capacities they have developed and which ones they might invest further in
• Helping organizations see what outcomes they produce, and therefore to look more systematically at the potential to partner
• Building ‘bragging rights’ - positive feedback (e.g., testimonials) and findings (e.g., placement statistics) can be incorporated into marketing materials.
• Supporting continuous program improvement, which enhances an agency’s funding prospects. 

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Financial Management and Financial Vibrancy

Financial Monitoring and Management

Financial monitoring and management is not simply about keeping track of receivables and expenses.  It is the practice of estimating the actual cost of delivering programs and services on per unit basis of service or some other metric that helps illuminate the costs that impact on a particular revenue stream.  This contrasts with the practice of pooling all revenues from all revenue sources and pooling all expenses. 

The cost-accounting process allows for you to be aware of the true costs of programs and to work towards minimal amounts of subsidization.  This allows you to make decisions based on a sound financial knowledge of the program.

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Business Planning

In developing a business plan, you are articulating not only how your agency’s program(s) will unfold from a service delivery perspective, but also how it will unfold financially, given its costs and forecasted revenues.

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Partnership and Financial Vibrancy

Agency Partnerships

Both the financial vibrancy research, and the work of Lester Salamon – a prominent US sector researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies, Center for Civil Society Studies, http://www.jhu.edu/ccss/index.html - point to partnerships as the leading way that non-profits are transforming their work in the current fiscal environment.

The capacity to build relationships – to work together to envision and build new ways of working – often make the difference between being able to offer a valuable program or service or having to pass up the opportunity for additional revenue. Collaboration between partners can also enable the exchange of capacity in each of the partnering organizations.

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Community Partnerships

In the larger context of community capacity building, collaboration and partnership formation strengthens networks, improves access to information and opportunities and enhances community. It is a win-win scenario for both your agency and your community.  Networks of partnerships build community capacity to respond to issues from within.

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Program Innovation and Financial Vibrancy

Financial vibrancy is about creating a strong and sustainable link between an agency’s program model and their financial model. It is essentially creating congruence between the two in both value and function and this at the core of innovation in organizations.

Financially vibrant organizations ask not how can we sustain our work, but what is the work we can sustain?  This quarter-turn thought brings a pragmatic and innovative approach to financing that is not about proposal writing, but about access to more and different ways of financing.

If an organization believes that it is always one proposal away from sustainability it may run the risk of focusing only on better proposal writing, instead of thinking through the financial model that will be a unique fit to their work.

Diversifying Revenue Streams
Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Proposal Writing
Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Strategic Planning and Financial Vibrancy

In essence, strategic planning involves maximizing your agency’s various strengths and capacities toward an agreed-upon goal by articulating the steps and timelines it will take to reach that goal.  It is a means of maximizing the return on your agency’s human, financial and other resources.

Strategic planning is a way of integrating all of the other paths to financial vibrancy in a way that is unique to your agency:  this builds synergy.

In contrast to the ongoing and program-focused nature of day-to-day agency management, strategic planning is a “big picture” process that reflects on the future direction of the agency as a whole and DRIVES – as well as integrates - efforts in all other paths (e.g., financial management).

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Governance and Financial Vibrancy

Board Recruitment, Development and Decisions-Making

Financially vibrant Boards are able to reflect on the organization’s work and generate new ways of working, new relationships and new sources of revenue to help meet the agency’s mission.  Financially vibrant Boards are also able to communicate well and can articulate the value the agency contributes to the community clearly. The ED has a central role in that s/he must actively develop a Board that builds the organization’s effectiveness in achieving its mission and that builds its profile in the broader community.

Success Stories | Lessons Learned

Values/Goals/Mandate Clarification

Clarity about vision, goals and mandate are essential in changing times to avoid drifting off mission in the pursuit of revenue.  This means being clear and steadfast in what you and your agency values most, and what it is your goal and mandate are.  It is all too easy to drift, and begin to chase revenue-generating ideas and opportunities that are a poor fit with what your organization stands for and what it does best.