T. Scott discusses the work of Jim Collins and how what makes a business great and what makes a social sector enterprise great are two very different things.
[I]n the social sectors it is a mistake to think that we need to “act like a business” (the subtitle to the monograph is why business thinking is not the answer) and he acknowledges that the measurements that we use to assess ourselves are not going to be as neatly quantitative as those that measure the performance of a for-profit company. But we still have to have clear goals, and strong discipline, and a way to tell whether or not we are moving toward those goals.
I think the important thing is to serve our users (customers) and leave them with the impression that we’re critical to their success — in other words, that we’re the ‘go-to’ people for research and study.