Our Staff
Robert Penna, Ph.D, Program Development
Five Questions for Dr. Robert Penna (Troy Record, Sunday, May 8, 2011)
"Dr. Robert Penna is author of the books “Outcome Frameworks” and the recently released “The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox.” A Bronx native who resides in Albany, Penna currently works as a program developer for the Capital Employee Assistance Program, a subsidiary of Family & Children’s Service of the Capital Region, the nation’s oldest counseling and family service not-for-profit organization."
"Transparency and Fundraising: Is There a Connection?" (With Ken Berger) (Nonprofit Technology Network. September 15, 2010.)
As calls increase for charities to be more open and accountable in their management and reporting, it is natural for many of them to ask, considering the extra work involved, "What’s in it for us? Is there a connection between more transparency and more successful fundraising?"
"Billy Beanes and Outcomes" (With Ken Berger) (Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal. August 2010.)
Billy Beane was the manager of the Oakland A's baseball team who found ways to improve his team (and ways for his team to win) by looking at player statistics no one else was looking at. In this article, FCSCR's Bob Penna and Charity Navigator's Ken Berger suggest that the nonprofit sector should begin to do the same, moving away from trying to identify promising programs and organizations by how busy they are, how hard they try, or by how well they are known...and instead by looking at the evidence they can offer of their effectiveness.
“A Troubling Disconnect” (With Ken Berger) (Huffington Post. May 24, 2010.)
In this article, Berger and Penna ask why so many high-profile charities offer potential donors so little real information regarding their management and spending practice.
“Charity Navigator Responds” (With Ken Berger) (Viewpoints. Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University.)
On March 7, 2010 this blog invited public comment on Charity Navigator’s plan to expand its rating system to include measures of transparency and performance. Several commentators criticized the notion of measuring the performance of nonprofits. In this article Berger and Penna defend both CN’s decision and the concept of measuring nonprofit performance.
“Rating Healthy Organizational Performance” (with Ken Berger) (AHP Journal. Spring 2010.)
In this commissioned article, Berger and Penna write to AHP’s audience of health care philanthropy professionals on the subject of broadening their view of a healthy organization to include variables beyond financial soundness. Expanding upon the themes in the Alliance article, the authors suggest that the transparency with which a health care organization is managed, and the results it achieves for those it serves also need to be included in the calculation.
“Eight Outcome Models” (with Bill Phillips) (The Evaluation Exchange of the Harvard Family Research Project. Volume XI, No. 2, Summer 2005.)
This article was based upon the 2003 book, Outcome Frameworks, by Penna and Phillips. As in the book, the authors introduce readers to a variety of outcome models used in the nonprofit arena to manage toward higher performance and verifiable results.
