Measuring the Performance of Voluntary Organizations

In the current political and economic climate, there are rapidly escalating demands from public funders and other stakeholders for indicators which can capture the achievements and impacts of the voluntary sector. Having clarified the context of these demands, the primary aim of this article is to develop criteria for measuring the ‘performance’ of voluntary organizations. This is undertaken by marrying relevant international theoretical literature suggestive of their roles and contributions with a ‘production of welfare’ approach, which has a proven track record in the evaluation of human services. Eight domains of performance are suggested (economy, effectiveness, efficiency; choice/pluralism; equity; participation; innovation and advocacy), embracing twenty-two separate indicator sets.