BALANCED SCORECARD FOR NON PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Balanced Scorecard for Non Profit Organizations

The University of Greenwich

Balanced Scorecard

Introduction

This paper intends to discuss how the balanced scorecards can be adopted for the nonprofit organizations. Balanced scorecard is basically a tool for managing performance of strategies. This is made as a semi standard structured report which can be thoroughly used by the managers for keeping a track for the execution of activities. This essay basically intends to evaluate the manners in which nonprofit organizations can adapt the concept of balanced scorecards for the purpose of enhancing their performances. For this purpose; several examples will be utilized in this paper. The most important example that would be cited in the paper is of 'The Application of Niven's Balanced Scorecard in a Not-For-Profit Organization in Hong Kong: What Are the Factors for Success?' This article is written by Yeung and Connell in the year 2006. This article has been selected mainly because it provides important insights related to nonprofit organizations.

Other than this article; examples related to local government organizations, universities, hospitals and healthcare centers will also be explored in this paper. The paper will also clarify the history of balanced scorecard. However; the basic focus of the paper would revolve around how different nonprofit organizations have adapted balanced scorecard for enhancing the underlying performances. Also; the underlying issues that such companies can face while making the use of balanced scorecard will be discussed in this paper. The purpose of this paper is to make the readers aware about the significance of using the concept of balanced scorecard in nonprofit organizations and its ultimate impact over the organizational performance.

Brief History of Balanced Scorecard

The balanced scorecard is basically a performance management tool. This is a structured report which is supported by different methods and automation tools. The balanced scorecards are used by managers for the purpose of keeping track for the execution of activities and strategies in an appropriate manner. The concept of balanced scorecards is essentially known for different frameworks and is considered to be most rapidly used performance management framework from the several management tools available (Kaplan, 2002 Pp. 1-4).

The concept of balanced scorecard was originated in 1990. The balanced scorecard was emerged as one of the most significant performance measurement tools from the viewpoint of effective strategy execution framework. It has been observed that the concept of balanced scorecard was initiated by Dr Robert Kaplan and David Norton. The concept developed by Dr. Robert Kaplan and David Norton has now become a strong foundation related to the holistic strategy execution process. This framework facilitates the organizations to develop effective measure to implement strategies successfully.

The concept of balanced scorecard can be traced back even before 1990. In; 1987 Schneiderman of Analog Devices, a mid-sized semi-conductor company developed a balanced scorecard which is now seen as the first generation balanced scorecard design. Schneiderman also contributed within the research conducted by Dr. Robert Kaplan and David Norton which lead towards the development of actual balanced ...