Evidence‐Based Management: Implications for Nonprofit Organizations

• Published date: 01 March 2014
• Author: Anthony R. Kovner
• Date: 01 March 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21097

Evidence-Based Management

Implications for Nonprofit

Organizations

Anthony R. Kovner

New York University

The article reviews evidence-based management and its

implications for practice and teaching. My focus is on strate-

gic decision making in nonprofit organizations. Evidence-

based management is a process that includes framing the

question, finding evidence, assuring accuracy, applicability,

and actionability of evidence until the evidence is the best

available.

Keywords: nonprofits, evidence, decision making, management

ALL MANAGERS MAKE DECISIONS based on evidence. In this arti-

cle I argue that managers of nonprofits should consider im-

proving the quality of such evidence so that it is the best

available. The purpose of the nonprofits and the communities they

serve may be much more fully achieved if managers use evidence-

based management (EBMgmt). Rousseau (2012a) defined EBMgmt

as: “the systematic, evidence-informed practice of management, in-

corporating scientific knowledge in the content and process of

making decisions. …” (3).

Instead of deciding on an organizational intervention and seeking

to find evidence to support an intervention, the EBMgmt process

starts with a management challenge that is translated by stakeholders

into an answerable question. Hsu and his colleagues (2009) suggested

Correspondence to: Anthony R. Kovner, 295 Lafayette Street #3008, New York, NY

10012. E-mail: anthony.kovner@nyu.edu.

NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP, vol. 24, no. 3, Spring 2014 © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc 417

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21097

The author thanks the reviewers, Duncan Neuhauser, Christine Kovner, and Tom

Rundall for their constructive comments and suggestions.