Accountability and Effectiveness Evaluation in Nonprofit Organizations

This volume provides new perspectives on assessing the performance of non-profit organizations while meeting the information needs of decision-makers, both internal, such as resource-providers and clients, and external including boards and staff.

This unique volume provides new perspectives on assessing the performance of nonprofit organizations whilst meeting the information needs of decision-makers, both internal (such as resource-providers, regulators and clients), and external (including boards, managers, staff and volunteers). Whilst most discussions of accountability focus exclusively on financial accountability, this title offers a significant contribution to a relatively untouched area by combining the treatment of both evaluation and accountability from a managerial perspective. With increased interest in the concept that nonprofit organizations must be accountable, this topical volume fills a gap in the literature that postgraduates and scholars ofbusiness studies and management will find invaluable.

Introduction1. Accountability: the Foundation of Performance Measurement, Evaluation and Reporting2. Generating Information to Serve Accountability Relationships: Evaluation Methods and Processes3. Recent Research on Accountability Relationships and Evaluation: What Really Goes On?4. The Use of Information in the Accountability Relationship: Further Evidence of Human Problems in the Evaluation Process5. Taking the Next Step: Developing General Standards of Performance Reporting for Non-Profit Organizations6. Grappling with the Dilemmas of Evaluation: A Review of Existing Evaluation Tools for Non-Profit Organizations7. From Concepts to Practice: Improving Cost Information for Decision Making in Non-Profit Organizations8. Case Studies in Performance Management 1: Capital Mental Health Association9. Case Studies in Performance Management 2: The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria10. Making Sense of Multiple Measures of Performance: an Assessment of the CCAF/FCVI Approach to Annual Performance Reporting11. Performance Measurement in Non-Profit Organizations: a Note on Integration and Focus within Comprehensiveness12. The Value Sieve: Accountable Choices Among Incommensurable Programs Christopher Corbett Summary and Conclusions

James Cutt is Professor of Public Administration and Economics at the University of Victoria, Canada. He has taught at various universities around the world and held the Foundation Chair in Administrative Studies at the Australian National University. His previous publications include Public and Non-Profit Budgeting: the evolution and application of zero-base budgeting, Comprehensive Auditing: theory and practice and Public Purse, Public Purpose: autonomy and accountability in the groves of academe.Vic Murray is Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria, Canada. He is active in teaching, research and consulting on the problems of effectively managing non-profit organizations of all types.