Pathways to Nonprofit Excellence

(Paperback)

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Description

This volume focuses on a survey of contemporary thinking about creating effective non-profit organizations. Based on interviews with 250 leading thinkers from the worlds of philanthropy, scholarship and consulting, as well as 250 executive directors of some of the nation's most effective non-profits, the book argues that there is no one best way to higher performance. Although higher performance clearly requires a commitment to excellence, it can be achieved along more than one pathway using one of several different strategies. It shows that every non-profit organization can improve - no matter how well or poorly it is currently performing - often by taking simple first steps up a development spiral to higher performance.

Reviews

"If you have considered what distinguishes some nonprofits as excellent or how some nonprofits becmae excellent, then Paul C. Light's more recent research, reported in Pathways to Nonprofit Excellence, is important reading" Lynn K. Jones, DSW, CSWM, Administration in Social Work, 1/1/2003

"Pathways to Nonprofit Excellence is written in an engaging manner, and the interviews with thought leaders are worth a read on their own....Nonprofit trustees, managers, donors, and anyone else with more than a passing interest in organizational effectiveness are likely to find it useful. The book would also be an interesting addition to any graduate course in which performance or capacity are addressed, and perhaps as an indtroductory reading assignment for a nonprofit management class to set the context for discussions about organizational effectiveness." Beth Gazley, School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, Unspecified Book Review

Author Bio

Paul C. Light is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service at New York University. He is also Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he founded the Center for Public Service. Light is the author of numerous books on public service and management, among them Pathways to Nonprofit Excellence (2002), Government's Greatest Achievements (2002), Making Nonprofits Work (2000), and The New Public Service (1999).