Measuring the performance of voluntary organizations

Publication by Jeremy Kendall

In the current political and economic climate, there are rapidly escalating demands from public funders and other stakeholders for indicators which can capture the achievements and impacts of the voluntary sector. Having clarified the context of these demands , the primary aim of this article is to develop criteria for measuring the ‘performance’ of voluntary organizations. This is undertaken by marrying relevant international theoretical literature suggestive of their roles and contributions with a ‘production of welfare’ approach, which has a proven track record in the evaluation of human services. Eight domains of performance are suggested (economy, effectiveness, efficiency choice /pluralism; equity; participation; innovation and advocacy) , embracing twenty-two separate indicator sets.

Jeremy Kendall and Martin Knapp, Public Management, Vol. 2 Issue 1 2000

Link to the publication

Measuring the performance of voluntary organizations

Jeremy Kendall

Researcher
United Kingdom

Dr. Jeremy Kendall is senior lecturer in social policy at SSPSSR. He holds a master’s degree in health economics from the University of York and received his doctorate at PSSRU. As Local Associate for the UK in the Johns Hopkins Comparative Non-profit Sector Project (CNP), he undertook economic, historical, political and social analysis for Phases 1 and 2 of that study. He has subsequently conducted several European research projects focussed on the third sector. He is a former editor of the journal Voluntas. He currently convenes SSPSSR’s civil society research cluster, and also convenes SSPSSR’s M.A in civil society, NGO and nonprofit studies. https://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/academic/kendall.html http://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/research/clusters/civilsociety.html https://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/postgraduate/taught/ispocs.html

Relevant Publications

Kendall, J. (2003) The Voluntary Sector: Comparative Perspectives in the UK. Routledge, London.

This text draws on the findings of CNP in the UK to develop a socio-economic and political analysis of the British voluntary sector’s contributions to society and public policy, and explores its impact across subfields of policy including social care, social housing and environmental action.

Kendall, J. (2009) (ed) Handbook on Third Sector Policy in Europe: Multi-level Processes and Organized Civil Society. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.

This text draws upon the TSEP project (see profile Kendall) to present a third sector policy analysis, covering both national and European dimensions of policy.

Kendall, J., C. Will and T. Brandsen (2009) The third sector and the Brussels dimension: trans-EU governance. In: J. Kendall (ed.), Handbook on Third Sector Policy in Europe: Multi Level Processes and Organised Civil Society, Edward Elgar, pp. 341-81.

Kendall, J. (2010) Bringing ideology back in: the erosion of political innocence in English third sector policy. In: Journal of Political Ideologies, 15, 3, 241 – 258.

This paper draws on work undertaken in the CINEFOGO project to develop an analysis of the evolving ideological dimension of recent third sector policy developments in England.

Kendall, J. (2010) The limits and possibilities of third sector Europeanisation. In: Journal of Civil Society, 2010, 6, 1, 31 - 65.

This paper draws upon the TSEP project to conceptualise and explore empirically the relationship between Europeanisation processes and the third sector.

Kendall, J. (2014) From mainstreaming to modernisation? New Labour and the third sector in England. In: M. Friese and T Hallman (eds) Modernising Democracy? Associations and Associating in the Twenty First Century. Springer, New York.

Projects

Welfare innovations at the local level in favour of cohesion, WILCO (2010-2014) This project was funded by the EU’s 7^th Research Framework Programme. It focused on the link between social innovation and local urban governance. www.wilcoproject.eu Role: Lead researcher for one of the UK research sites. CINEFOGO Network of Excellence (2005-2009) This network was funded by the EU’s 6th Research Framework Programme. It sought to develop new knowledge on the role of multiple identities, active citizenship and organized civil society. An important output of this work package was a special issue of the Journal of Political Ideologies, which I edited with Professor Nick Deakin. http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/projects/325_en.html Role: Work package leader „The third sector and political ideologies“ Third Sector European Policy, TSEP (2002-2005) This project was funded by the EU’s 5th Research Framework Programme; the European Science Foundation’s European Collaborative Research Project in the Social Sciences; the UK Economic & Social Research Council (Award R002223725); and the Charities Aid Foundation. This project was the first to explore conceptually and empirically how and why third sector policy has developed in Europe (mediated nationally, and through the EU institutions). http://www.kent.ac.uk/tsep/index.html Role: Project Coordinator Prior to 2000, my comparative work on the third sector was closely linked to CNP. http://ccss.jhu.edu/research-projects/comparative-nonprofit-sector

Third Sector Impact

Measuring impact. Enhancing visibility.

Measuring the performance of voluntary organizations

Link to the publication

Jeremy Kendall

Relevant Publications

Projects