Measuring the Networked Nonprofit has arrived

by Rob Cottingham | Sep 27, 2012 | Cartoons, Social Signal

A few weeks ago, I let you know that Measuring the Networked Nonprofit was on its way, bringing with it the combined wisdom of Beth Kanter and Katie Paine on how nonprofits can measure their impact in an era of free agents and networked activism.

It’s a momentous book. Organizations from governments to businesses to community groups to nonprofits have all struggled with whether and how to engage with the networked social world, especially when resources are scarce and stakeholders are feeling skittish. Measuring the Networked Nonprofit opens up new possibilities for accountability, learning, innovation and greater impact.

Today, Beth officially announced the book’s availability. It’s already been topping Amazon’s best-selling book on nonprofits for days because of advance purchases, which speaks to the hunger out there for this kind of practical information, framed in a hope-filled vision for the future of the nonprofit sector. (Beth and co-author Allison Fine articulated that vision in their previous book, The Networked Nonprofit.)

As Beth puts it, “The book is about how nonprofits can measure and improve results from leveraging their networks.” The advice you’ll find there has been “field tested in real-time as part of my work as Visiting Scholar at the Packard Foundation with 60 of their grantees who participated in a peer learning/focus group and contributed many of the case studies.”

And Beth will help you do a little extra good when you buy your copy:

I am donating my royalties to support the Sharing Foundation‘s college education program for young people in Cambodia. My family is sponsoring Keo Savon, who we met this summer in Cambodia. She is second year engineering student and by supporting her education she will have better economic opportunities.

In the interests of full disclosure (by which I mean deliriously excited bragging) here’s one more excerpt from Beth’s post:

To help those who need to learn to laugh at measurement, not fear it, I commissioned Rob Cottingham to create cartoons that capture the essence of each chapter’s advice. (There were numerous times when I snorted my latte from laughing so hard!).

(Which is why that waiver I have clients sign has such explicit language about burns and scalding.)

Beth and Katie have lined up a slew of events, but they’re also eager to hear from folks who’d like on in their community. In the meantime, if you’d like to support the book’s launch, Beth suggests four things you can do:

Buy a Copy of the Measuring the Networked Nonprofit

Attend a Book Event this month as part of our book tour

Share of photo of yourself with the book on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook and use the hashtag #netnon

Stay tuned to our blogs as we share more stories about how nonprofits apply the advice in the book and I’ll keep you posted on Keo Savon’s studies

And what do you want to bet they’ll be measuring all of it?