The New Guidestar...same as the old Guidestar

Why is it so hard to assess a nonprofit's impact?  Because we can't agree on what impact should be.  

The new Guidestar.org debuted recently and it is a significantly better-looking website.  Now that I know where to find the various buttons, I can click easily to the 990s that I rely upon to assess a nonprofit's financial health.  

The fundamental promise of the site's name--to guide us to a deeper understanding of nonprofits--relies frustratingly out of reach, however, because we as a society can't agree on what we want a nonprofit to achieve.  

Logically, everyone knows that a group of 100 nonprofits operating at the $100 million+ level will be able to serve more people than 10,000 nonprofits operating at the $1 million+ level.  Scale does matter.

Emotionally, though, we can't avoid giving to so many of the small local charities that tug at our heartstrings.  

The result?  Thousands of nonprofits that stumble from one event to the next, from one direct mail appeal to the next, looking for their own guidestar to sustainability.