NPO CONVERSATION

We invite leaders of nonprofit organizations to join us each quarter for a brown-bag lunch discussion about issues, ideas, and concerns in the nonprofit and philanthropic community.

The meetings are a time for us to “talk shop” and move beyond the usual conversation between foundations and nonprofit organizations.  Guests learn a little about GMA and a lot about their peers’ perspectives on important issues.

Attendance is limited to seven organizations with one representative per organization, preferably the executive director or director of a major program. The lunches are held in GMA’s ninth floor conference room at our 77 Summer Street offices.

Topic for Tuesday, September 10:  MEASURING IMPACT

Impact has been defined as the outcomes of a nonprofit organization’s work to achieve its mission.  Potential funders want to know what an organization will accomplish with their funding.  Sounds simple, right!?  Yet a whole industry, with its own vocabulary of words like “metrics” and “outputs” and “root causes,” has developed to address nonprofit impact. 

In this conversation among nonprofits and funders, we hope to break through the jargon to take a closer look at how nonprofits actually measure, report, and learn from their short- and long-term impact.  We will also explore what foundations really want to know regarding the impact of their grantmaking on organizations, people, and social issues, and how that information informs future allocation decisions.

Please join GMA’s associates for a guided lunchtime conversation with a small group of local nonprofit leaders.   Come ready to tell us about the value of measurement to your organization, and share your answers to some of these questions:

• How does measuring impact affect your work?
• How do you meet both your own and funders’ needs for data?
• In an ideal world – where only you decide on the units of measure – how would you measure the impact of your organization’s work?

What do you think?  Please bring your ideas and a brown bag lunch to GMA on Tuesday, September 10.   We’ll provide refreshments and dessert.

Register in advance.  Please call Susan Haff, tel. 617/391-3092 by September 6.