Gayathri Tirthapura's blog

As a provider of strategic planning, strategic technology, and other technical assistance services to nonprofit organizations throughout the Greater Boston area, those of us at Management Consulting Services (MCS) readily see the impact of the worsening economic crisis on the sector. We recently conducted a survey of nonprofits in Massachusetts to gauge the impact of the economic crisis on the nonprofit sector in order for us to talk about the effects using some data rather than anecdotes. This report presents the findings from this survey.Following were some of the major findings from this survey:a.    While organizations of all budget sizes anticipate the economic downturn impacting their organization, organizations with smaller budgets indicate that the impact will be greater compared to organizations with larger budgets.

When I visited Bangalore, India, during the summer, I got an opportunity to visit 3 different non-profits and spend considerable time with the leaders of the organizations. Each of these organizations was founded by very passionate people who in all cases could relate very closely with the issues that the organizations’ constituents were facing and have grown considerably since their inception. I found many similarities between the challenges that these organizations faced and the ones that I commonly see within non-profits in the U.S. But I also saw a very important difference between what I saw in India and what I see in the U.S, which I hope to uncover in this blog.

I’m traveling to Bangalore, India right now. I’ve been meeting some foundations involved in funding programs in the area of children’s education. Recently, I
was talking to a program officer at a mid-sized foundation in Bangalore. We were exchanging ideas about how foundations should measure the outcomes of programs they fund. How much outcomes measurements is enough from a foundation’s perspective? When non-profits are so tightly squeezed for resources, what is fair to ask from them?

The focus of this paper is to describe the unique features of a youth programming model that is currently implemented by the "The Young Peoples Project" headquartered in Cambridge, MA. This programming model contributes to both individual and societal change. In summary they are:
• A focus on “peer to peer” knowledge transfer
• A focus on creating individual and collective purpose
• A focus on developing a sense of freedom about ‘work’
• A content based approach which contributes to both organizational capacity and program replicability
This paper also describes the types of outputs and social indicators that are emerging from a solid ten-year history of using this engaging program model.

These days, there is a significant trend related to professionals moving from the corporate sector to non-profit sector. The most popular figure who has done this is Bill Gates himself. But have you ever wondered as to what it really takes to make such a shift in careers? Just in terms of skills and attitudes that one needs to possess for a career in non-profits, what is required? You may be prepared to take the pay cut and may possess utmost passion for helping the underprivileged but that may not be enough.

Program evaluators typically have to pay attention to two opposing sides of interest and try to balance them out carefully. On the one hand, they have a stake of their own in the evaluation. In the interest of being recognized professionally, they have to please the study sponsor. If the evaluator is a staff person within a non-profit, she would be concerned about pleasing her boss and colleagues and thus advancing her career. If she is from outside the non-profit and a funder has sponsored the study, she is concerned about pleasing the funder so that they send more work her way.