“The GNP (Gross National Product) measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

Bobby Kennedy, Speech at the University of Kansas at Lawrence, March 18, 1968

I first posted this on my blog, http://www.cfctreasures.wordpress.com and I absolutely agree with your points about the limits of the evaluation mentality.

The Good Samaritan & “Performance Measurement”
by Bill Huddleston

Currently, there’s a lot of hype in the world about being “results oriented” and the culture of “performance management” has seeped its way into almost every realm of American life, including business, government and now, the non-profit world as well.

Well, why shouldn’t it? Doesn’t it sound like it’s the only way to be, after all, who could be “against results” or against “performance measurement.” It sounds great, but like the question, “When did you stop beating your wife (or husband)?” it sets the stage in an extremely negative, and skewed fashion.

Let’s use a historical example, the story of the good Samaritan from the Bible is one that I believe is so widely known that it qualifies as a societal story, not just a religious one.

To recap, in the parable a traveler is robbed, beaten, stripped of his clothes and left for dead. Two different people walk by, leaving the robbery victim alone. Then a man from Samaria (the Good Samaritan) comes upon the man, and even though the two different groups hated each other, he stops to render aid. The Samaritan takes pity on the victim, bandages him, pours oil and wine on his wounds, then puts the victim on his donkey and takes him to an inn and takes care of him. The next day, the Good Samaritan gives the innkeeper two dineri (this was about a month’s earnings at the time) and tells the innkeeper, “Look after him, and when I return I will reimburse you for any extra expense you have.” (The story is from Luke 10:29-35).

Now let’s apply modern performance measurement and outcome techniques to this story. With 2000 years of history the story still resonates, how many people have been helped because someone remembered the story of the Good Samaritan and acted in a way that was not perhaps their first impulse? We will never know, and to the performance management crowd, this incident would be recorded today as “too expensive” and “ineffective” – after all, the Samaritan only helped one person. We don’t know if the Samaritan ever came back and paid those extra expenses, and it was a month’s earnings to help just this one person.

It would also received the rating of : “Results Not Demonstrated” – we don’t know if the victim ever recovered, was permanently injured, or had mental impairment due to his injuries. All we know is that he had the crap beat out of him, multiple people walked by, until the “unclean” Samaritan stopped to help.

According to the performance measurement tools, the Good Samaritan “program” was a failure and had no impact.

I think not.

Copyright Bill Huddleston, All rights reserved.
http://www.cfcfundraising.com
Blog: http://www.cfctreasures.wordpress.com
BillHuddleston@verizon.net

I’d like to move a step further to where the web site of a non profit is its proposal, and where donors learn to choose who they support by first saying “what cause” then “what country” then “what zip code”. Once you get to that level of detail there are not too many choices. If the donor is committed to help the people in that zip code, they might need to be helping a non profit get better at what it does, or they might take a role of helping a good non profit stay good.

If just a fraction of donors made giving decisions based on this thinking it would lower the costs of fund raising, making more dollars available to programs. It could also lower the emotional costs of fund raising, resulting in more people staying in their leadership roles longer, which would have a huge impact on the quality and impact an organization has using the donor’s dollars.