Introducing the Engine of Impact Diagnostic
How does your nonprofit organization fare in each of the essential elements of strategic leadership? Is your organization truly “ready to scale”its impact? Today, to mark the official publication of Engine of Impact, Bill Meehan and Kim Jonker announce the availability of a diagnostic tool that will help you answer those questions
The Engine of Impact Diagnostic includes a survey in which you answer questions about a particular nonprofit. The organization can be one that you know in your capacity as an executive, staff member, board member, funder, or consultant, or in some other role. The survey takes just 10 to 15 minutes to complete. Immediately after finishing it, you will receive an assessment of your organization’s performance in the seven essential areas of strategic leadership: mission, strategy, impact evaluation, insight and courage, organization and talent, funding, and board governance. The diagnostic will also place your organization on the Readiness to Scale Matrix that Meehan and Jonker have developed. (They describe the matrix in detail in Chapter 8 of Engine of Impact.)
To get the most value from the diagnostic, you can invite other stakeholders in your organization to take it as well. Meehan and Jonker designed the tool to serve as a discussion starter. In many cases, different stakeholders in the same organization will get different results from using this tool. Exploring such differences can be a crucial step toward improving your organization’s performance and increasing its impact.
ACCESS THE ENGINE OF IMPACT DIAGNOSTIC >
|
|
Jim Collins on "Gold Medal" Performance
For an organization, as for an individual, the key to achieving consistently high performance goes beyond honing one or two areas of strength. Indeed, it involves building a capacity for excellence in all relevant areas. That’s the core message of Engine of Impact, and it’s one that Jim Collins emphasizes in the Foreword that he wrote for the book.
Collins, the renowned management expert and author of the best-selling books Built to Last and Good to Great, suggests that top-tier nonprofits share this fundamental attribute with top-tier athletes. “Imagine you seek to accomplish multiple gold medals in your chosen sport. What would it take?” he writes. “Within the small set of the most critical dimensions, you cannot have a weakness. If, as a middle-distance runner, you have awesome leg speed yet lack smart racing strategy, you will likely find yourself in poor position at the end of the race. If, as a gymnast, you have exquisite precision to hold balance on the beam yet lack the explosive power for a soaring vault or tumbling run, you will fail to win the all-around medal. If you do well in the water but fade in the run, you cannot win the triathlon. . . . The same applies to building a truly great nonprofit: you have to know (and focus on) the elements of high performance that matter most.”
READ THE FOREWORD BY JIM COLLINS >
|
|
A Chronicle Call to Action
As Jim Collins writes in his Foreword, Engine of Impact provides readers with “a detailed road map . . . for turning a good nonprofit into one that can achieve great impact at scale.” But the book also does something else: It calls on people throughout the nonprofit sector—executives, staffer members, and board members, along with funders of all kinds—to transform how they approach their roles within the sector. To enable nonprofits to become true engines of impact, all stakeholders must retool their efforts for what Bill Meehan and Kim Jonker call the Impact Era.
The November 2017 issue of Chronicle of Philanthropy features an article by Meehan and Jonker that builds on this theme. Setting their argument in the context of the current US political situation, Meehan and Jonker write: "Foundation leaders and philanthropy observers have issued calls to action that convey a strongly felt need to 'resist'—to fight against policies of the new administration that violate ideals that many of us hold dear. That is essential work for organizations that focus on advocacy. But we believe that nonprofits of all types, along with their foundation and individual donors, face a broader task: In a time of social and political disarray, they must demonstrate their ability to sustain a diverse and robust civil society."
READ THE FULL ARTICLE >
|
|
|
"Keep asking dumb questions until you figure out what the smart questions are."
— Meehan and Jonker, Engine of Impact
|
|
|
|
|
