Picking the right financial metrics for your nonprofit is like choosing your navigation points for sailing a ship: you don’t need to track everything, but you do need to track points that will help you get to your desired destination. Nonprofits aren’t the same as for-profit companies, and that’s why they need a different set of financial metrics. This episode with Dr. Elizabeth Searing leverages her combined research and “real world” work to chart out four key domains of financial metrics every nonprofit should track, and how they can be used to keep your finger on the pulse of your organization’s wellbeing.
Dr. Elizabeth Searing is an Assistant Professor of Public and Nonprofit Management at the University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Searing’s primary research focus is the financial management of nonprofit and social enterprise organizations, but she also conducts work on comparative social economy and the role of social and psychological factors in economic development and policy effectiveness. She is associate editor and an editorial board member of the journal Nonprofit Management & Leadership and an editorial advisory board member of Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management (JPBAFM). Prof. Searing has published over a dozen articles and is also an editor of two books: Practicing Professional Ethics in Economics and Public Policy (with D. Searing) and The Social Enterprise Zoo: A Guide to Perplexed Entrepreneurs, Philanthropists, Investors and Policymakers (with D. Young and C. Brewer). Immediately prior to her time in Texas, she was an Assistant Professor of Public Administration and Policy at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany (SUNY); she is also the former Director of the Institute of Nonprofit Leadership and Community Development at the University at Albany.
You can find Dr. Searing at her website.
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