Monday Morning Checklist:
What is "Success" & How Can It Be Achieved?
The questions posed on this website aren’t the kind you ask, and answer, once and for all. On the contrary, the odds are that you’ll find yourself coming back to one or more of them at various points (and in various combinations) throughout your philanthropic journey. And yet, you can’t ask questions forever; sooner or later you must make decisions. So how can you tell whether you’ve wrestled with a question sufficiently to move on? In our experience, each of these questions has some relatively clear indicators of progress. If you can check many of these markers off your Monday morning to-do list, then you’re probably well on your way to giving smart!
- Your definition of success is clear enough to allow you, and others, to judge progress against it.
- You can specify the key assumptions that underlie your theory of change.
- You’ve taken the time to learn what others know about the essential elements of your theory of change.
- Knowledgeable outsiders (including experts in your chosen field) think your theory of change is worth pursuing.
- All the decision makers involved in your philanthropy (including trustees and staff if relevant) understand and embrace your definition of success and theory of change.
- Your theory of change, not ad hoc interests or unsolicited requests, is driving funding decisions.
- If you’ve been pursuing your theory of change for several years, you’ve revisited your initial thinking at least once and asked what is, and is not, working as you expected.
Sources Used For This Article:
Thomas J. Tierney and Joel L. Fleishman, Give Smart: Philanthropy That Gets Results, (Public Affairs, 2011).