There is a widely held misperception that not-for-profit organizations are not held to the same "bottom line" accountability as their counterparts in the corporate sector. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Think about it. Do you really think that millions of private contributors demand any less accountability than individual shareholders? Or that corporate underwriters pay less attention to the non-profit they support than an institutional investor does? Or for that matter, that non-profits have fat budgets that don't require careful management?

So why wouldn't non-profits take advantage of the same resources and tools that their for profit counterparts do? Denny Bender, Senior Vice President of Communications for Habitat for Humanity International [1], thought the same thing. As the communications chief for the headquarters arm of one of the largest charitable organization in the US, Bender was fully aware of the need for measurement, he just wasn't entirely sure what he could do about it.
His research into the area of measurement led him to Delahaye Medialink, from whom he commissioned a preliminary study on the organizations reputation. The results of that study showed that HFHI was well respected, but vulnerable in a few areas. And, like any research, led to more questions. Was the reputation improving? What factors were contributing to it? And was the reputation having an impact on donations? In order to answer these and other questions Bender required a more comprehensive measurement plan.

He once again contacted Delahaye Medialink and they set up a "Dashboard Development Session" for early January 2001. The purpose of the meeting was to define specific measures of results for all of Bender's team.