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You know the expression “TMI?” Our kids—Lowell’s tweens and Mario’s young adults—have used the expression to shut down some serious discussions over the years. In the social sector, a fear of TMI may be shutting down some serious creativity. Yes, there is such a thing as too much information when you’re managing an organization. But generally speaking, those of us in the social sector are operating with too little information (or too little of…

Leap of Reason Update: August 2014 In response to the dark story we featured in our July update, our dear friend Lou Salza encouraged us to read an inspiring one that “brought tears to [his] eyes and joy to [his] heart”: The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown, about the University of Washington…

Leap of Reason Update: July 2014 As regular readers of this newsletter know, we love great reporting about organizational cultures that embrace data as a way of ensuring material, measurable, and sustainable good for the people or causes they serve. In the past few editions, for example, we have pointed to the data-driven 10,000 Homes…

Healthcare is an ideal field to watch if you’re hungry for insights into raising the performance of your organization. Today, we want to put forth another field nonprofit leaders should be studying: Education. In Finland and Poland.

Over the past few months, more than 50 top nonprofit thought leaders and practitioners convened by the Leap of Reason team have been working hard to produce a much-needed definition of the term “high-performance organization.” We hope our common—but not least-common-denominator—definition will provide a solid foundation for subsequent efforts to design ways to make high performance the norm in the social and public sectors.

To highlight core concepts of high performance, we’ve started to build a gallery of short video clips featuring courageous, outspoken nonprofit leaders. Here are some of the blunt messages you’ll see these leaders deliver:

The first systematic effort to shift the federal government’s focus from “what was done with public funds” to “what was accomplished was the the 1993 U.S. Program Results Act (GPRA). Unfortunately, the pioneering efforts of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have not yet produced a major change in how the federal government allocates taxpayer dollars. And yet, we’re now starting to believe the lumbering Ship of State might actually turn.

You’ve heard about the ways in which e-learning is transforming higher education. But we are convinced that e-learning will play a role in changing how we transfer and access knowledge in all aspects of life. Check out the new report Just in Time: The Beyond-the-Hype Potential of E-Learning to learn more.

To avoid majoring on “yesterday’s problems,” we all need to observe and absorb how new technology for collecting, analyzing, and applying information can and will influence our sector in the coming years.

Early feedback from attendees of the After the Leap indicate the conference was a success in bringing together high-performance-minded leaders and promoting a feeling of connection and community. Videos and slides from the keynote and plenaries are now available.