6 practices of high impact nonprofits

From an excellent article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review Fall 07 edition:

1. Serve and Advocate in order to achieve large-scale social change. It does not matter which angle you start with but to have a high impact you need both [my note: agree, but advocacy is much harder, costlier, unmeasurable etc than serving as well as less attractive to funders -unfortunately]
2. Make markets work: tap into the power of self-interest and laws of economics. Understand how to influence the market through working with different partners e.g. changing business behaviours, earning income.
3. Inspire supporters to help in whatever ways they can and nurture supporters' groups to maximum benefit.
4. Nurture networks; share ideas and information and harness the power of partnerships.
5. Be adaptive by responding to external changes; make sure you listen to others and understand the changes as well as evaluating activities and incorporating learnings.
6. Share leadership within the organisation and with other organisations by building strong leaders internally, building strong executive teams and powerful boards. This is crucial for sustainability.

Other important management principles:
-diversified, sustainable, financial support
-invest in HR and build reliable infrastructure (even if this means higher admin costs)

One area the article touches upon but I believe is the most crucial practice of all, is the use and leverage of other organsiations and other resources through the use of mutually beneficial (or 'strategic') partnerships. Finally an excellent point is made about the need to focus less on process and more on impact!