Introducing Lean for Nonprofits
Abstract
Question: What’s worse than a nonprofit that lacks what it needs to be effective? Answer: A nonprofit that wastes its meager resources because of poor process design.
Any organization that is looking to make the most of limited resources should look into “Lean” — an approach to improving daily work processes that can improve quality, reduce cost, and help your organization to achieve its mission more effectively (George 2003; Womack and Jones 1996).
Over the years, nonprofit leaders have become jaded about the numerous private industry fads that have promised to “improve” the nonprofit industry. Their skepticism is justified, since many such fads had not demonstrated widespread success in the for-profit world. Others required significant modification before they could be useful in a nonprofit setting.
But before giving up entirely on the search for help in managing limited resources, take a look at Lean. Applied effectively, the philosophy, concepts, and tools of Lean have the same power to unlock dramatic improvements in performance in the nonprofit sector as they have in a wide variety of for-profit firms.
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