The Nonprofit Dashboard: A Tool for Tracking Progress

Board oversight involves more than just reading financial statements, and nonprofit boards don’t always know how nor have the opportunity to provide adequate programmatic oversight. Dashboard reports communicate critical information to your board in a concise, visual, more compelling way. Dashboards help nonprofit leaders focus attention on what matters most in their organizations.

The Nonprofit Dashboard: A Tool for Tracking Progress discusses dashboards in the context of a nonprofit board’s essential governance role. It addresses where a dashboard fits in to planning and evaluation, and highlights the important partnership between staff and board in creating and effectively using a dashboard program. This resource will educate readers on

• Dashboard reports and how they should be used
• Deciding what to measure for mission effectiveness
• Determining the board’s informational needs and then maintaining a dashboard reporting system
• Designing the reports, choosing data display formats, and communicating a specific focus
• Using a dashboard generator

This book, for board members and senior staff, presents different options for creating dashboards and offers detailed illustrations and considerations. To help organizations get started with their own dashboard reports, the accompanying CD-ROM includes a dashboard generator file with two different customizable dashboard templates and how-to instructions for working with the file. Users must have a working knowledge of Microsoft Excel and already-defined organizational metrics and data in order to use the dashboard generator worksheets provided.

Ultimately, dashboards have the ability to improve the present way of doing things — ending in more effective meetings, more thoughtful and informed decision making, and better use of board members’ time.

This publication was made possible in part by funding from the MetLife Foundation.

Review the Table of Contents (PDF)

Read the Introduction (PDF)

Sample Dashboard Generator Graphics (PDF)