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Professor Alnoor Ebrahim of Harvard Business School explains how he thinks non-profit managers should respond to increasing demands from donors to measure social performance. The concepts he examines in a recent article include:

• Rather than simply complying with the demands of the most powerful actors, nonprofit leaders need to focus their attention on accountabilities that really matter for achieving their missions.

• Measuring results is valuable as a discipline for nonprofit managers, even if there is no general agreement about the methods to be used.

• There might be agreement on a common set of metrics in the social sector for a while, but there could be a convergence on what constitutes critical reflective learning processes within the organization.
  Quantifying performance and measuring results are no longer the sole domain of for-profit enterprises.