Special tax status for non-profits.

The tax form non-profits use. It’s how OPF (and other donors) find out about their financial situation, from total yearly income to total expenses and salaries. It’s easy to find them on the charity watchdog sites (GuideStar, CharityNavigator, the Foundation Center widget, etc).

The AC refers to itself as the braintrust of OPF (just kidding). Basically, they craft OPFs grantmaking process and work with the Partnership to increase its philanthropic and assessment knowledge.

Assessment is the process of examining and objectively judging a program, intervention, or organization. Assessment can look at impact, financials, human resources, etc. In the context of OPF, we assess organizations on a few aspects: their financials, their theory of change, track record, and overall approach.

A benchmark is a standard, often developed from standards set by exemplary organizations or by the best performances achieved across a stratum of organizations.

Just like you’re probably guessing right now, beneficiaries are the people whom an organization or program benefits (though it’s up to an organization to define what “benefit” is).

Core beliefs/values are an organization’s bedrock, as they are the essential driving principals an organization believes in and adheres to as they work to accomplish their goals.

Cost per impact or cost per beneficiaries are ways to determine financial efficiency. Methods vary, but basically you try to figure out how much it costs to achieve a defined benefit for a particular beneficiary or impact. Some donors like this because it’s a discrete and quantifiable measurement

DBL measures both financial and social outcomes.

Giving circles are a group of people who get together, pool their donations, and then re-give the pooled money as one larger unit. This is precisely what OPF does, except on a bigger scale – most other giving circles are smaller groups of friends or colleagues.

A grant is an amount of money given to a nonprofit without the expectation of being paid back (i.e. it’s not a loan). Grants can be small or large, designated for a specific program or not, and can sometimes require tons of paperwork and cutting through red-tape to “win”, especially when they’re from the government.

Basically, impact is what you’ve done, however you’ve defined it: the overall change you’ve created, how you’ve affected people/places/things you work with, the dollars you’ve given out, etc.

Indicators are used in assessment to measure performance or impact, usually to compare actual vs. planned outcomes. Indicators have to be “SMART”: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.

These are the different tiers of programmatic thinking for planning and assessment purposes. Inputs are what you put into a program (finances, human resources, program design, etc); outputs are first level results, i.e. the results of specific activities; outcomes are larger level results seen as a result of a particular program. Outcomes are not the same as “impact” however, which is the broadest, most macro-level of thinking about change. The relativity of these terms depends, naturally, on how you define your scale and what you’re measuring.

The WGs are the people who tirelessly review nominated organizations during each cycle. Often an awesomely motley crew of Partners, WGs are a great way to take part in the inner workings of the OPF grantmaking cycle. They’re also a great way to get to know the nominated organizations, as you’ll end up talking with at least one.

Overhead is thought of as general operating support, and typically covers the cost of running an office (rent, bills), employee salaries, and occasional capital costs.

A philanthropist is someone who gives money. The word can bring up images of the Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gates and others who can give boatloads of money. However, OPF is trying to modify that image to include young adults, including young adults who have limited financial resources—even those of us with student loans can be philanthropists!

Programming is all the fun stuff, specifically the costs for direct work with beneficiaries. This could be costs for anti-retroviral drugs, trees for planting, money to cover training costs for beneficiaries.

A term very much in vogue for the last decade or so, social entrepreneurship bring the qualities of entrepreneurship (the make or break style and expectations; risk; ownership; financial sustainability) to the social sector. The goal is to increase effectiveness, impact, and accountability.

SROI is a popular way to quantify the social impact or outcomes of a financial investment. It typically applies to investments made in the social development sector, though not always.

Stakeholders are anyone who is invested in a particular intervention or program. These can include community members and leaders, direct beneficiaries, donors, lending agencies, partner nonprofits, etc. In participatory development, a program tries to get “buy-in” from all stakeholder groups, to ensure that everyone involved is committed to success (this also helps with accountability).

Formulated in the nineties, Theory of Change is a way for an organization to define its goals and then map how to actually achieve them. It’s a bit more introspective and comprehensive than some other ways of thinking about organizational impact, and we at OPF are huge fans.

TBL measures financial, social, and environmental outcomes.

Done in the style of venture capitalism, venture philanthropy is high-engagement giving which partners monetary donations with a high level of substantive involvement (be it mentorship, a board role, strategic advice, etc) from the donor.