Practices of High Impact Non-Profit Organization

Imagine what kind of world we would be living in if each was focused on high-impact charity, where nonprofit institutions coordinate with business, gather market forces for the greater good and harness resources for managing operational expenses to succeed. In their book, Forces for Good; Grant and Crutchfield argues that high-Impact non-profit organizations have embraced diversity and utilized it as a driving tool towards the achievement of a great vision of liberating humanity from world hunger, enhancing education, advocating for climate change and alleviating poverty. The book explores the good practices employed by Non-Profit organizations that have come out of the ordinary to influence major policy programs across America. My main question of just how do they do it? Is elaborately answered by this exemplary piece of writing. Through investing tremendous effort in research, Grant and Crutchfield satisfactorily demonstrate the principles of practices employed by various social entrepreneur institutions seeking to fulfill very diverse purposes. In Forces for Good, Grant and Crutchfield analyzed hundreds of nonprofit organizations to bring up the come up with the best strategies employed by these institutions in their quest to accomplish their diverse agendas. Grant and Crutchfield effectively use research criterion to define their methodology and narrow down their research to come up with the most accurate results possible on the practices of nonprofit institutions in their aspirations of changing the world.

The practices of non-profit organizations are analyzed based on the Impact of High Profile Non-Profit Organization
Imagine what kind of world we would be living in if each was focused on high-impact charity, where nonprofit institutions coordinate with business, gather market forces for the greater good and harness resources for managing operational expenses to succeed. In their book,Grant and Crutchfield argues that high-Impact non-profit organizations have embraced diversity and utilized it as a driving tool towards the achievement of a great vision of liberating humanity from world hunger, enhancing education, advocating for climate change and alleviating poverty. The book explores the good practices employed by Non-Profit organizations that have come out of the ordinary to influence major policy programs across America (Doty, n.d). My main question of just how do they do it? Is elaborately answered by this exemplary piece of writing. Through investing tremendous effort in research, Grant and Crutchfield satisfactorily demonstrate the principles of practices employed by various social entrepreneur institutions seeking to fulfill very diverse purposes. In Forces for Good, Grant and Crutchfield analyzed hundreds of nonprofit organizations to bring up the come up with the best strategies employed by these institutions in their quest to accomplish their diverse agendas. Grant and Crutchfield effectively use research criterion to define their methodology and narrow down their research to come up with the most accurate results possible on the practices of nonprofit institutions in their aspirations of changing the world. In Forces for Good, the practices of non-profit organizations are analyzed based on the type of nonprofit organizations, operational time frame, definition and scale of impact of their operations. Furthermore, Grant and Crutchfield diversified their area of samples regarding size, terms of overall agenda, business model, and geographical location. Grant and Crutchfield, argue that nonprofit organizations need an operational change if they are to emulate the impact achieved by these nonprofit institutions which have proven that they would stop at nothing to revolutionize the entire industry and successfully address the global issues embedded in our society. In my reading of Forces for Good, I learned the main principles utilized by nonprofit organizations to achieve maximum impact in the society answering my question on how they manage to accomplish their goals (Crutchfield & Grant, 2012).
Grant and Crutchfield explained that nonprofit organizations advocate and serve on behalf of the constituents just to have an impact in their lives. “I can’t lose this house because I helped build it with my hands-it’s the only connection my nine-year-old daughter has with her mother who passed.” As emotional as it may sound, these are the words of an African American man employed as a school bus driver who walked into the offices of a Self-Help’s offices, a nonprofit organization seeking to solve housing problems among Americans. Grant and Crutchfield present a case of service offered to a frustrated father in his quest to keep his home from being taken away from him and his daughter by a bank that helped finance its construction. Grant and Crutchfield state that after Self-Help staff had listened to this man, they looked at the mortgage financing and noticed discrepancies. The house had a $ 44,000 mortgage finance at a very high rate of interest. Furthermore, the loan had been over quoted since the original loan was just $ 29, 000. The lender had added $ 10, 000 for “credit insurance,” an additional $ 5,000 fee along with a 50% increase in the mortgage. With the help of Self-Help group’s staff, the man successfully kept his home (Crutchfield & Grant, 2012).
While this was a win for the group, it wasn’t enough to successfully enhance their mission of alleviating the lack of proper housing among Americans. Grant and Crutchfield report that the group lobbied support from several industry players in a bid to change the Homeownership Protection Act nationwide but were unsuccessful. Determined to accomplish their objective, Grant and Crutchfield explain that the group narrowed down their coverage to the state of North Carolina questioning banks on their moral responsibility to safeguard legislation. The Self-Help group successfully earned a landmark enactment of predatory lending laws in 1989 and has since cooperated with organizations in other states to pass housing legislations across America. Grant and Crutchfield explain that it took advocacy and service to reach this height of achievement and it can be emulated by other nonprofit institutions. Our guest speaker, Janikke Klem clearly elaborated how the social philanthropy has changed, highlighting financial literacy, stem education, housing, and health as the main focus areas. Self-Help group elaborates how collaborations among various nonprofit institutions are essential to solving a common issue as stated by Janikke Klem. Furthermore, Self-Help group actions also stress the importance of nonprofit institutions on lives of low-income minorities; like the African American father who have no financial backup and political lobbyists advocating for their rights an aspect highlighted by our speaker Brian Bates. Finally,
Also, Grant and Crutchfield advocate for adapting and modifying operational tactics to achieve success. In their book Forces for Good, they argue that nonprofits that achieve real success learn, listen, and modify their strategy based on studying their external environment enabling them to stay relevant and sustain their impact (Doty, n.d). Share Our Strength, is a nonprofit organization which engages and inspires businesses and individuals to share their strength with the aim of alleviating childhood hunger. While studying this organization, Grant and Crutchfield noted that the organization successfully “raised $ 200 million in twenty years for hunger relief groups through Taste for the Nation events in sixty cities; and engages one million volunteers through Great America Bake Sale; and it is also known for innovative cross-sector partnerships.” However, Grant and Crutchfield noted that this organization just like the rest had to come from a fair amount of challenges to achieve this feat. They assert that the organization had to learn and adapt to ensure its long-term survival. Firstly, Share Our Strength came up with an event dubbed Taste of the Game, where a special guest of college coaches would finance dinners at outdoor functions. However, these events received low turnouts and sometimes no guests. To survive, Share Our Strength launched another event dubbed Dine across America by requesting chain restaurants like Applebees to make a donation of a portion of their earnings to charity, yet they managed to raise only $ 250,000 out of a $ 1 million target. Direct mail received a minimal response with only a handful of chefs donating $ 100. However, Share Our Strength organization noted that chefs would at no cost be willing to reach out to opinion leaders in the society. This led to the birth of Taste of the Nation function in 1ighteen cities at $ 250, 000 each. The organization noted that kind donations of the chefs’ time were worth more than cash contributions. Grant and Crutchfield argue that Share Our Strength organization learned and adapted to their needs and came up with ideas and inputs that led to the creation of Great American Bake Sale which amounted to 3 million to alleviate childhood hunger (Crutchfield & Grant, 2012). Currently, drafted business plans, which is reviewed by Share’s management team on a periodic basis are part of new strategy ideas.
Share Our Strength’s resilience, as demonstrated by Grant and Crutchfield in their book Forces for Good is consistent with our guest speaker, Gilles Muller;s lessons, that you first have to generate your idea, second find funding, third develop &submit your proposal, fourth award negotiation, fifth award setup, sixth manage your project and lastly closing out your project. These are the same steps followed by Share’s staff in their bid to stay relevant through learning and adapting. Furthermore, the case of Share Our Strength confirms Charlie Faas’s assertions that people are willing to donate it just depends on what their greatest contribution will be and all organizations have to do is ask. Share Our Strength learned this and found a role that the chefs could play better towards donating and became successful. In conclusion, your position is the society does not matter, whether you are a philanthropist, nonprofit CEO, a donor, a business executive, a board member, a volunteer or simply someone curious in how to contribute to humanity. Reading Grant and Crutchfield’s Forces for Good will give you an inspiring reason to be an active catalyst for a lifetime contribution social reconstruction in a bid to make the world a better place for everyone.
References
Crutchfield, L. & Grant, H. (2012). Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, Revised and U (1st ed., pp. 28-71). John Wiley & Sons.
Doty, D. Six practices highly successful social entrepreneurs with case studies (1st ed.). Retrieved from https://eagle.northwestu.edu/faculty/don-doty/files/2011/03/Forces-for-good-book-summary.pdf