Metrics for Success
Performance measurement is an essential function of effective associations. A clearly constructed framework that tracks outcome and impact toward achieving the organization’s mission is critical to success. Associations must be able to identify important milestones and use a planning process to keep them on track toward their goals.
Goals of the ASAE Research Foundation’s Metrics for Success study:
- provide executives with real examples of how associations are using performance measurement systems to set goals and track progress toward achieving their missions
- describe how information gathered from performance models and methods can be used to inform effective decision making.
The ASAE Research Foundation enlisted Root Cause[1] to perform the research. The initial phase of the study, detailed in the research brief Why Performance Measurement?, included a literature review that addressed the evolution of performance measurement in businesses and nonprofits. The brief touches on the history and theories of performance measurement as well as a preliminary discussion of best practices.
The second phase of the study examined how performance measurement systems are actually applied in associations. Root Cause received survey responses from 85 ASAE members with a wide range of satisfaction in their performance measurement systems. The researchers followed up with eight in-depth interviews with a representative group of respondents. The resulting report, Measuring Performance: Purpose, Process, and Practice, provides examples of how associations are approaching performance measurement and identifies challenges to and lessons learned from their processes.
Why Performance Measurement? (PDF)
Measuring Performance: Purpose, Process, and Practice
For more information about this research, email research@asaecenter.org.