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Making Non-Profits Work: A Report
on the Tides of Nonprofit Management Reform
Paul C. Light (The Brookings Institution, 2000)
The nonprofit sector is under tremendous pressure to improve
its organizational performance. Its funders—governments, charitable organizations,
and individual givers—insist on economy and results, while its clients—both
communities and individuals—demand efficiency and responsiveness. In Making
Nonprofits Work, Paul Light, Director of the Center for
Public Service at the Brookings Institution, examines the current models
for nonprofit reform and explores possible paths toward improved organizational
performance. This report charts the current trends of management reform
in the nonprofit sector. It begins with an assessment of the current climate
for reform at both the national and local levels, then examines the four
popular methods, or "tides," being advocated: scientific management,
which is built on a template of best practices; liberation management,
which uses outcome measurement to gauge success; war on waste, which promotes
private industry-style cost-cutting techniques; and watchful eye, which
emphasizes public exposure as a disciplining tool for nonprofits. While
Light agrees that the sector must perform better, he cautions nonprofits
to go slowly in becoming champions of any particular reform strategy.
He warns leaders in the nonprofit sector to recognize the limits of various
reform models, to set priorities carefully, and to limit reform efforts
to a handful of priorities. The report ends with a discussion of the limits
of knowledge in the general field of nonprofit management reform, and
a report on the estimated strength of each of the four reform tides. Light
argues that too much of the current reform debate is about finding business
practices that might
help. Paul C. Light concludes that the nonprofit sector has a remarkable
opportunity to prevent the excesses and avoid the fads that have dominated
reform efforts in government and the private sector, but only if it recognizes
the limits of knowledge on what does and does not work in making organizations
run more efficiently. Softcover,
96 pages, $14.95
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