Margaret Fritsch

Susan Dreyfus, president and CEO of the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, a national network of nonprofit human-serving organizations, share insights on the state of the nonprofit industry and a vision for the sector's future through the Alliance's "Commitments of High-Impact Nonprofit Organizations" framework.

The year’s outlook
As we enter 2015, there is an urgency in the human-serving nonprofit sector to find and leverage every possible synergy and resource to achieve our collective missions for the country’s vulnerable children, families, and adults.

The organizations within this sector as a whole are challenged by civic leaders, policymakers, and funders to demonstrate how our efforts create lasting change amid shrinking resources, increased demand and higher expectations. Yet, I believe 2015 will be a crucial and exciting time. There is no doubt the social compact is being renegotiated, and we need to be more active than ever before.

Our vision for the future
In the volatile operating environment that forms our new status quo, strategy and execution can no longer be sequential. They must be concurrent. But human-serving nonprofits cannot lead through disruptive change haphazardly.

Recognizing that, the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities saw a need to provide the field with a clear path toward organizational excellence and genuine community impact. That path became the Commitments of High-Impact Nonprofit Organizations, a specific framework of approaches, values, and disciplines that empower nonprofits to maximize their comprehensive capacities and meet community need by embracing the following Commitments areas:

• Leading with Vision
• Governing for the Future
• Executing on Mission
• Partnering with Purpose
• Measuring that Matters
• Investing in Capacity
• Co-Creating with Community
• Innovating with Enterprise
• Engaging All Voices
• Advancing Equity

The Commitments framework is an outgrowth of the Alliance’s Strategy Counts Initiative, made possible by The Kresge Foundation, as well as Alliance member organization feedback, an extensive literature review, and the Alliance’s more than 100 years of experience as a leading network of human-serving nonprofit organizations. Going beyond a mere checklist of ideas and recommendations, the Commitments framework is backed by a deep and integrated system of resources for evaluation, learning, and change—from webinars to peer exchange groups and library collections.

There is no stipulated sequence or pace to the Commitments framework, nor is it a rote set of compliance or accreditation standards. Instead, it’s universally applicable to organizations regardless of size, complexity, maturity level, or program orientation—yet tuned specifically to the aspirations and challenges of human-serving nonprofits.

Achieving optimal organizational performance is a necessary foundation for achieving greater impact these days. Yet, performance without advocacy is efficiency, not impact. The uniqueness of the Commitments is that they address not just business and compliance best practices, but the values orientation that a human-serving organization must embrace. They guide not just an organization’s what, but its how and why.

I continue to call upon the sector to pursue excellence across these Commitment areas. Let us remember we must be advocates first and service providers second, measuring success not in services but in the number of people able to free themselves from poverty to achieve lives of safety, health, and educational and employment success.

We live in a global economy where our competitive advantage depends on the quality of our human capital—our people. I truly believe the main concern for donors and funders is not spending, it is spending that does not yield impact. By adopting the Commitments to help us achieve that impact, we can drive taxpayer, donor and funder support—not so much for a plethora of programs, but for our role as transformational agents of change for communities and economies.

The challenges and opportunities we face are more complex than any one organization can address on its own—no matter how large or sophisticated. Leaders at all levels must anticipate change and strategically position their organizations to take advantage of future partnerships.

Through the Alliance’s scope and reach, the Commitments framework has the potential to be that guiding force which substantially transforms and accelerates the entire sector’s journey toward excellence and genuine impact. Indeed, I believe we are at an historic moment when the human services sector can shine its brightest. We must move forward from a position of strength with an unwavering determination to make sure every child, family, adult, and community has the ability to thrive and prosper.

Learn more about the Alliance’s Commitments at: http://alliance1.org/commitments/commitments-high-impact-organizations.

Susan Dreyfus is the president and CEO of the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, a national network of nonprofit human-serving organizations. A leading voice in the nonprofit sector, Susan is the former secretary of the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services and Wisconsin’s first administrator of the Division of Children and Family Services. She is a member of Leadership 18, a coalition of CEOs from the largest and most respected nonprofit organizations in America, as well as a board member of the American Public Human Services Association, Generations United, National Human Services Assembly, and International Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers. She was appointed to the 12-member National Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities in 2013.