Charting Impact Reports Enable Nonprofits and Foundations to Communicate
Mission, Objectives, and Impact
(WASHINGTON, January 25, 2011)—The strategic alliance of Independent Sector, GuideStar USA, and BBB Wise Giving Alliance announce the launch of a campaign called "2012: Let’s Chart Our Impact." The campaign features print and online advertising about Charting Impact, a simple new framework for in-depth reporting on mission, objectives, and results, and the nonprofits that have benefited from completing a Charting Impact Report. The campaign ads are aimed at nonprofit organizations, professional fundraisers, and foundations and the first ads feature the American Red Cross.
"Charting Impact has received positive responses from the 100 organizations that have completed their reports," says Diana Aviv, president and CEO of Independent Sector.
For example, Paul Brest, immediate past president of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, says: "We are always trying to clarify our goals and strategies. We created our own Charting Impact Report to provide another way to share our thinking with colleagues across the field."
Aviv adds: "This campaign further demonstrates the value in answering the five strategic questions and completing the Charting Impact report. Charting Impact allows organizations an opportunity to align their focus and processes to better serve the people who count on them. When we have met our goal of 1,000 complete reports by the end of 2012, we believe we will have unleashed new possibilities for innovation and collaboration, and for strengthening our work across the sector."
Charting Impact offers a standard framework for creating reports that enable stakeholders to easily and clearly understand the objectives, benchmarks for progress, and impact of nonprofits and foundations. This sector-wide initiative was developed by nearly 200 leaders to help organizations of all types, sizes, and missions convey their efforts to advance the common good, establishing an industry standard for reporting in-depth mission, objectives, and results. Charting Impact Reports are available for public view through ChartingImpact.org.
The cornerstone of Charting Impact is a series of five questions that encourage strategic thinking and the open sharing of ideas, strategies, and results within the nonprofit and philanthropic community. Completing a Charting Impact Report will empower organizations to convey their mission, achievements, and goals in a way that encourages donors to channel their resources to organizations that best fit their charitable goals; facilitates strategic thinking about mission, practices and how results are measured; and fosters collaboration and idea sharing within the nonprofit and philanthropic community.
The five questions that organizations must answer to complete a Charting Impact Report are:
- What is your organization aiming to accomplish?
- What are your strategies for making this happen?
- What are your organization’s capabilities for doing this?
- How will your organization know if you are making progress?
- What have and haven’t you accomplished so far?
Nonprofits and foundations can respond to these five questions using an online interface available at ChartingImpact.org. Each response includes a character limit, encouraging careful, example-filled descriptions of the organization’s achievements to clearly communicate with an audience of donors and other investors without inundating that audience with information. Responding through ChartingImpact.org produces a formatted Charting Impact Report that will be shared publicly on ChartingImpact.org, on GuideStar USA or BBB Wise Giving Alliance profiles, and—in the future—with other websites and information sources. Individual nonprofits and foundations can also share their Charting Impact Report on their own websites.
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About Charting Impact
Charting Impact is a collaboratively developed, thoroughly-tested framework that focuses on making nonprofit organizations more effective. It encourages strategic thinking about how an organization will achieve its intended impact. Responding to the five questions shares concise information about that organization’s plans and progress with key stakeholders and the public. For more information, visit ChartingImpact.org.
About Independent Sector
Independent Sector is a leadership network of 600 nonprofits, foundations, and corporate giving programs committed to advancing the common good. Our nonpartisan coalition leads, strengthens, and mobilizes the sector; we advocate for public policies that fortify our communities; and we create unparalleled resources so staff, boards, and volunteers can further their missions and increase their impact. IndependentSector.org
About BBB Wise Giving Alliance
The BBB Wise Giving Alliance seeks to help donors make informed giving decisions and to advance high standards among publicly soliciting charities by producing reports that specify whether the charity meets 20 Standards for Charity Accountability. There is no charge to the charity for the accountability evaluation and the resulting reports are available to the public for free at www.give.org.
About GuideStar USA
GuideStar, www.guidestar.org—the leading source of nonprofit information—connects people and organizations with information on the programs and finances of more than 1.8 million IRS-recognized nonprofits. GuideStar serves a wide audience inside and outside the nonprofit sector, including individual donors, nonprofit leaders, grantmakers, government officials, academic researchers, and the media.
