Center for Social Innovation

Published: November 03, 2008 Download  45 minutes, 20.9mb, recorded 2008-05-22

America's nonprofit sector is one of the largest and most vibrant in the world, yet some maintain it is not addressing social challenges in the ways it should. In this audio lecture, part of the Stanford Social Innovation Review's conference on evaluation, nonprofit consultant Mark Kramer argues that the problem lies in organizations' ineffective efforts to evaluate their performance.

Kramer gives an overview of the history of evaluation in the nonprofit sector, pointing out how and why old methods are frequently no longer appropriate for assessing organizations' work as they grapple with today's large-scale social issues. Drawing on a number of case studies, he offers a radical approach to evaluation that he proposes will better allow nonprofits to fulfill their mission.

Mark Kramer is the founder of FSG Social Impact Advisors, a nonprofit organization that provides strategic management consulting to other nonprofits. Kramer is a founder and served as initial board chair from 2000 to 2004 of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, a nonprofit research organization in Cambridge, Mass. He has spoken and published extensively on topics in philanthropy and corporate social responsibility, including strategy, evaluation, leadership, social entrepreneurship, community foundations, venture philanthropy, cross-sector collaboration, and social investment. Prior to founding FSG, Kramer served for 12 years as president of Kramer Capital Management, a venture capital firm, and before that as an associate at the law firm of Ropes & Gray in Boston. He received a BA, summa cum laude, from Brandeis University, an MBA from The Wharton School, and a JD, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Resources:

• FSG Social Impact Advisors
• Report: From Insight to Action: New Directions in Foundation Evaluation, April 2007