Putting Leap of Reason in Great Company

June 28, 2011

The volume of high-quality, substantive feedback on Leap of Reason: Managing to Outcomes in an Era of Scarcity continues to surprise and impress us. Out of respect for your time, I’ll keep this communication short and offer just a few highlights from the past few weeks. If you have an appetite for more details on the nature of the responses we’ve received, you can find them in this recent column I wrote, “Listening and Learning Before Leaping Forward,” in which I responded to a few of the excellent questions we’ve gotten since we launched in mid-May.

In a column in the June 30 issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Sean Stannard-Stockton reviewed Leap of Reason and Tom Tierney and Joel Fleishman’s Give Smart. Stannard-Stockton, a smart philanthropic observer and advisor based in the Bay Area, reports that the books offer compatible diagnoses of the state of underperformance in the nonprofit sector and aligned prescriptions for how funders and nonprofits can work together to achieve much more. It’s a real honor for us to be compared favorably alongside Tom and Joel, two remarkable leaders who’ve seen and done it all.
In a Washington Post blog for federal employees, the Partnership for Public Service’s Tom Fox highlighted Leap of Reason as one of his top five leadership books for summer reading. We agree with the reviewer that the book is relevant as a management guide not just for social sector leaders but also for government leaders struggling to “identify critical measures and learn from results.”
The Rapporteur blog, published by communications expert Michael McWilliams, makes an overly generous comparison of Leap of Reason with Jim Collins’s classicGood to Great and Good to Great for the Social Sectors.

It has been affirming to see the steady stream of requests from organizational leaders for copies of the book to share with their boards, staff, and membership, as well as for use at management retreats and strategic planning sessions. We encourage this broader distribution and would be pleased to send copies for such use. Just write to us at info@leapofreason.org to let us know the purpose and number of copies needed. We are also pleased to announce that the book is now available in the iTunes app store as a free download (http://bit.ly/kyUu1G). If you’re more of a Kindle person, you can get that version (for a $1 handling charge) at (http://amzn.to/LOR_Kindle). My best, Mario Morino Leap of Reason – https://leapofreason.org

Quotes From Leaders Like You

“Managing to outcomes is not about simply counting things or gathering information. And it is not about satisfying funders. It is an internal effort aimed at figuring out what works and what doesn’t, so that the organization can provide the best possible services to its clients”

- Isaac Castillo, DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative

“You have to have undying passion for the population you’re serving. We can spend time patting ourselves on the back for the 85 percent of the kids who are doing really well in our program. But we need to be as concerned about the 15 percent who aren’t succeeding and learn how we can improve for them.”

- Sam Cobbs, First Place for Youth

“Through a process of self-reflection, our board members asked themselves fundamental questions: How can we improve? How can we make a greater impact?”