With the right implementation, nonprofits have a straightforward tool for measuring success at their fingertips.

By Joel Zimmerman

6. Staff development. The final category in the classical balancedscorecard scheme is innovation and learning. Where the preceeding measurement categories focus on an organization as it is today, the final category addresses the fact that organizations need to continuously grow, adapt and improve. For most companies, future development is tied to the organization’s staff. Within nonprofits, innovation is not usually the compelling market force that it is in the world of competitive, for-profit enterprise. For most nonprofits, developing the organization means, in a literal sense, developing its employees. In this spirit then, for nonprofits, it seems more straightforward to call this final category staff development.