Free Management Library's
Online Nonprofit Organization Development Program Module #12:

Conducting Complete Fitness Test of Your Nonprofit

Written by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Copyright 1997-2008.

Much of this program is based on materials adapted from the
Nonprofit Capacity Building Toolkit(SM)

(This module is in the nonprofit organization development program. However, this module can also be used by anyone as a self-study exercise to assess the health of major aspects of a nonprofit organization.)

INTRODUCTION

This module provides a set of extensive checklists that can be used to assess the health of a nonprofit's practices in the areas of legal, governance (board), human resource management, planning for the organization and programs, financial and tax management, and fundraising.

If you have completed the various learning modules in the nonprofit organization development program, then the various checklists in this module will likely indicate that the practices in your nonprofit are very healthy.

MATERIALS FOR REVIEW

  • The following materials will help you address each of the topics and learning activities in this module.

Organizational "Fitness" Test - - - including the sections:
- - - How to Use the Tool
- - - Disclaimers
- - - Legal Indicators
- - - Governance (Board) Indicators
- - - Human Resources Indicators
- - - Planning Indicators
- - - Financial Indicators
- - - Fundraising Indicators

SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

  • Learners are strongly encouraged to discuss the following questions with peers, board members, management and staff, as appropriate.

ACTIVITIES TO BUILD SYSTEMS AND PRACTICES

  • Learners are strongly encouraged to complete the following activities, and share and discuss results with peers, board members, management and staff, as appropriate.
  • As you proceed through the following activities, be sure to note any incomplete actions in the Action Item Planning List.

1. Answer each of the questions posed by all of the indicators in the Checklist of Nonprofit Indicators. List an action plan to complete items suggested by the audit, but not done by your organization.

TRACKING OPEN ACTION ITEMS

1. One of the first indicators that an organization is struggling is that open action items are not tracked and reviewed. (Open action items are required actions that have not yet been completed.) Instead, organization members only see and react to the latest "fires in the workplace". Whether open action items are critical to address now or not, they should not entirely be forgotten. Therefore, update and regularly review a list of open action items that includes listing each open action item, who is responsible to complete it, when it should be completed and any associated comments. When updating the list, consider action items as identified during discussions, learning activities and assessments in this module. Share and regularly review this action item list with the appropriate board, management and staff members in your nonprofit. You can use the following Action Item Planning List.

2. What remaining questions or comments do you have that you want to pose? Pose them in ODNet-Nonprofits, a free online discussion group..

REMINDERS FOR THOSE IN THE ON-LINE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

1. Are you exchanging feedback with others about what you're learning in this program?

2. Are you sticking to your study schedule for this program?

3. Are you practicing your basic skills in management and leadership, including in problem solving and decision making, planning and meeting management?

4. Are you communicating throughout your organization by using your skills in internal communications?

5. Are you managing yourself? How many hours a week are you working? Are you noticing any signs of stress? If so, what are you doing about it?

6. One of the ways you might be able to tell if you're stressed out and/or losing perspective might be whether you're tracking details or not. Are you using the action item list referenced above?

(Learners in the nonprofit organization development program can return to the nonprofit organization development program.)

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For the Category of Evaluations (Many Kinds):

Related Library Topics

Recommended Books

General Information (Applying to Many Types Evaluation)

The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.



Book Cover Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation
by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. There are few books, if any, that explain how to carefully plan, organize, develop and evaluate a nonprofit program. Also, too many books completely separate the highly integrated activities of planning, marketing and evaluating programs. This book integrates all three into a comprehensive, straightforward approach that anyone can follow in order to provide high-quality programs with strong appeal to funders. Includes many online forms that can be downloaded. Many materials in this Library topic are adapted from this book.

Also see

For evaluating employees, Supervision -- Recommended Books

For evaluating nonprofit programs, Program Management -- Recommended Books