Nonprofit Organizational Assessment

Evaluating or crafting an organizational strategy requires analysis of the relationship
between mission, value and resources. Strategy allows managers to focus on an
organization's long-term plan and ensure that mission objectives are met.
Organizational strategy explores the relationship between unit and the environment. It
involves action—matching skills and resources with opportunities and threats.
According to Michael Porter, a professor from Harvard Business School and leading
expert in organizational strategy, the basics of a competitive model have Five Forces:
Threat of new entrants
Threat of substitute products or services
Bargaining power of customers
Bargaining power of suppliers
Intensity of competitive rivalry
Private and Public Strategy
Strategy can vary between public and private sectors. In the private sector the mission
is to make money for stockholders, however in the public sector its mission is full-filling
a social purpose or need. Measuring success is much harder in the public sector as it’s
based on when a social need or issue has been full-filled. There is often no direct link
between meeting mission and being sustainable. Sometimes a social value does not
align with financial performance or organizational survival.
Organizational Structure
How an organization is structured depends on the coordinating mechanism used to
produce the product or service. Think in terms of labor division for specific tasks and
how authority is to be distributed among employees. Henry Mintzberg outlines five ways
to consider labor division:
Simple Structure: Direct Supervision with little specialization
Machine Bureaucracy: Standardization of work with horizontal and vertical
specialization
Professional Bureaucracy: Standardization of skills with horizontal specialization
Divisional Form: Standardization of outputs with some horizontal and vertical
specialization (mainly between divisions)
Adhocracy: Mutual adjustments with much horizontal specialization
Performance Management
Performance management can be defined as 'an ongoing and continuous process of
communicating and clarifying job responsibilities, priorities, and performance
expectations in order to ensure understanding between supervisor and employee.'
An important aspect of performance management involves designing specific
measurable indicators as a means of gauging progress. Outcome indicators are not to
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