The Social Profit Handbook: The Essential Guide to Setting Goals, Assessing Outcomes, and Achieving Success for Mission-Driven Organizations Paperback – March 16, 2015

As a board member of a national family foundation, I spend a lot of time having conversations with really smart people in the philanthropic space, to learn and help me be as effective as I can be in my board role, and in my newer role as a strategic consultant. I am listening and learning from all sides…from peer funders, non-profit leaders, community members, other family foundation trustees, staff of organizations like Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, the Center for Effective Philanthropy and many more. One common theme is assessment of the work. David Grant's book has sharpened my thinking about WHEN to assess, HOW OFTEN to assess, and WHAT it is you are really measuring. He believes in a collaborative process between funders and grantees around designing rubrics to measure the work, and offers a more realistic, respectful, and robust model that is not about non-profit accountability to funders, but about true efforts towards social change. I am grateful to him for sharing his wisdom in this enjoyable book and for empowering more of us to think differently for the right reasons. Fellow funders, this book is a must read!

Who knew rubric design could be interesting as well as fun? Taking a stand for the elusive qualitative assessment in the social profit world, David Grant captures the importance of an internally- and collaboratively-designed rubric to gauge an organization’s effectiveness in an on-going, sustainable way. Mr. Grant guides readers through thought processes, examples, and actual workshop questions to ensure that their mission-driven organizations are really “measuring what matters.” As someone with a background in both social profit and foundation work, I believe the ideas in this handbook will indeed prove to have more staying power than a “workshop fad,” helping readers gain both clarity and accountability in their social profit work and, perhaps, in their outside lives as well. Highly recommended!

The use of qualitative analysis is looked upon in the scientific world as soft science and thus bottom tier. However, as Grant points out, not only does it have a usefulness it can and will make a profound difference in your organization and development. In the social sector, this analysis allows everyone s at all levels to have a clear view of what they are working towards and how to work well towards common goals.Additionally. This book is not limited to the social profit sector, as rubrics and self evaluation are key spends to any organisation in any sector to grow and expand richly.

This book offer practical tools for real organizations to develop and implement meaningful action and assess those actions in ways that support continuous improvement as well as external accountability. The sample rubrics provide vivid examples of both what good rubrics look like and how to develop them. Grant brings decades of direct experience along with a clear, accessible voice that invites the reader to engage in a thoughtful, humane, and no-nonsense process. As the director of a Social Profit, I am certain that the insights in this volume will help guide our organization toward deeper understanding of its potential and more effective means of realizing that potential.

Extremely rudimentary with limited innovations specific for the sector.

If you are involved in any non-profit organization (as a Board member or Director), I would heartily recommend this book. It's based on Grant Wiggins's UbD (Understanding by Design) work that is very popular in schools. Very readable, too.

David Grant's compelling book provides a practical method for non-profits (which he compellingly renames "social profits") to set aspirational yet realistic goals and measure their success. An important and highly creative book.

Sensible, down to earth, common sense advice from an expert in his field. Da,vid has some truly innovative thought on thriving in society, not just in the nonprofit world. Highly recommend this book.