Evaluating performance in the non-profit organisation

Abstract

By definition, non-profit organisations do not exist for the purpose of earning a profit. Their basic purpose is to provide services - education in school, health care in a hospital. Their success should be measured by how much services they provide with the resources available. The problem is that there is no agreed way of measuring the quantity of services provided by most non-profit organisations. Should we try to measure these services in monetary terms as is the practice in cost-benefit analyses, or should we measure them in non-monetary terms? Sometimes even measurement in whatever terms is difficult. We can measure the number of students who graduate but not the amount of education that they take with them, we can count the number of patient days in a hospital, but we cannot express in numerical terms the adequacy of the care each patient receives.