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This article provides an in-depth case study of the process by which a funder evaluates the performance of a client nonprofit agency in the social services sector. The connection between the evaluation and the subsequent funding decision is also explored. A framework for uncovering the basic dimensions of the evaluation process is presented and applied to the evaluator-evaluatee relationship studied. Various points at which perceptions of the relationship got distorted are identified. The evaluation process was found to be a subtle and complex interaction of formally rational methods and nonformal subjective judgments. The implications of these findings for practical improvements to the evaluation process are discussed.

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Financial reporting by non-profit organizations deals only with accountability for propriety and regularity, and ignores output measurement. The development of output measures of a physical or index nature offers a means of relating dollar costs to output in the form of cost-efficiency or cost-effectiveness measures, but does not provide any measure of the absolute value or worthwhileness of such programs. This fundamental absolute value question should be asked of all non-profit programs and documented to the greatest possible extent in budgetary submissions, and subsequent control and audit. In public sector non-profit programs, the posing of this question requires information on consumer demand other than in aggregative and imprecise form through the political process, and much improved information on the cost side. Eliciting demand information is feasible in the case of public programs with separable benefits by the use of a variety of pricing techniques, direct or imputed, whether or not the service in question is ultimately financed on a user-pay basis. The problem of eliciting demand is more difficult in the case of public goods, but improved demand information can be obtained, ideally by an approach such as the use of a Clarke tax. The argument can be extended to encompass questions of income distribution, stabilization, regulation and tax policy. Recent developments in program evaluation in the federal government are important, but remain deficient in failing to address the question of absolute value.

In the absence of performance reporting standards, nonprofit organinationsface dificulties in accommodating the varied and changing informational requirements of public and privatefunders. Clients, volunteers, management, and staff also use and demand performance information. The authors studied four human services organizations in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and their performance reporting across the management cycle, from planning through implementation and monitoring, to actemal reporting and auditing. The authors analyzed documentary evidence and conducted interviews with users of pegormance information. They conclude this article by proposing a set of general standards nonprofit organizations can use in performance reporting.HE objective of this article is to develop a proposal for a set of standards for performance reporting in human services non-T profit organizations (NPOs). The proposal is addressed primarily to client services programs but is also adapted to include fundraising programs. Interest in the subject reflects the increasing role that NPOs in British Columbia (B.C.), Canada, are being required to play as the provincial government retreats from the delivery of social services. Our concern arose specifically from the wide variety of forms of performance reporting that have been developed in the absence of reporting standards, and the associated difficulties faced by NPOs in accommodating the varied and changing information requirements of public and private funders and other users of performance information such as clients, volunteers, management, and staff.-45