On Wednesday, July 16th, Ascendant hosted a breakfast for nonprofit executives at the Fairmont Copley Hotel in Boston. Over 80 executives showed up. They keynote speaker was Dr. David Norton, co-creator of the BSC concept.

In the Bridgespan Summer 2008 Knowledge Letter, released today, Kirk Kramer, a partner at Bridgespan, talked about a recent report from Bridgespan and Bain on how effective organization achieve superior results. In this research, Bridgespan compares assessment results of 30 nonprofits against Bain's database of over 500 for profits.

The Balanced Scorecard management system has been around for quite some time -- born in 1992, it's now officially a teenager. And while 16 years is still relatively young in human years, it's a few lifetimes in management concept years. Remember the other "great ideas" of the early 1990s? Like reengineering?

I was lucky to be in New York for the awards ceremony for the NY Times 2008 Nonprofit Excellence Awards. This award is given in conjunction with the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers (NYRAG) and the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York (NPCC). The ceremony was at the Times Center on June 24.

It is hard to imagine Mergers and Acquisitions in the nonprofit sector--especially acquisitions. How much is a nonprofit worth? What would one nonprofit pay another one for its resources? Would there be hostile takeovers or poison pill structures? Probably not. Mergers, on the other hand, might be a good idea. I saw two articles referencing this on Monday of this week, in fact.

The most recent study released by The Boston Foundation, "Passion & Purpose; Raising the Fiscal Fitness Bar for Massachusetts Nonprofits" is an excellent study of the nonprofit community in the commonwealth (http://tbf.org/Home.aspx ).

Have you decided to deploy the Balanced Scorecard in your organization? If so, congratulations. You've just taken the first step in aligning your organization for success. But it's important to remember that deciding to deploy the Balanced Scorecard is just the first step on this journey. Throughout your travels, keep the following in mind:

The Summer 2008 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review has an interesting article entitled "Reimagining Microfinance" where they argue that microfinance should be viewed as a platform, not as a product. One of the critical factors in this transformation is the creation of holistic performance standards and a certification program that add transparency to this market.

The United Way's mission and vision are about improving people's lives, and they recently decided that they were not making as big of a difference as they could. CEO, Brian Gallagher, decided that the most important measure for the organization was to look at the number of lives impacted and communities shaped. His approach may take donations away from traditional recipients of United Way grants.

We are pleased to announce that we have begun inviting nonprofit leaders in the greater Boston area to attend an executive breakfast on managing performance with the Balanced Scorecard. Our keynote speaker is the Balanced Scorecard co-creator, David Norton. The breakfast will be on July 16, 2008.