Catalyze August 2022

CATALYZE MAGAZINE | 7
S T A R T I N G A N N G O
C O N T I N U E D . . .
I think the misconception is that nonprofits don't operate like businesses and that's just not true.
We actually do, we just take the profits and put them back into the organization. So all of those
business skills I think were really helpful to me. I was just, before this call, talking to somebody
who was like, "how do I write grants?" And so I did the same. I told them to look up a theory of
change and look up a basic business plan and just make sure they can do both of those things
for whatever it is you're trying to, to change and start there.
Barb Quaintance:
That's great, that's such a great summary because it indicates you have to have the credibility to
do the work. You can't just say, "I like music, so I'm going to do this," and you have to be
professional. Non-profit does not equal unprofessional. It has to be a professional operation.
How do you measure success in the program? Is it the number of people who come through? Or
something else?
Terri Winston:
That's another thing I should have added. Your question is something like metrics, like, what are
you going to measure? How you are going to measure success is incredibly important for us so
that we can make sure are we serving our communities. Are they happy with it? So we do it
from multiple directions. We obviously are quantitatively measuring success. Like how many
people did we serve this year, as opposed to last year? Are we serving particular communities?
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