---
title: Nonprofit Advisory
group: People and education
order: 6
summary: A self-guided workspace for nonprofit diagnostic questions, evidence and full costs, proportionate actions and learning checkpoints, alongside the advisory-service charter.
status: live
statusNote: The local planning workspace is live. It provides no consulting engagement, financial audit, evaluation finding or certification. A staffed advisory service and its volunteer trial still need trained advisors, evaluation partners, independent funding and governance.
conditions: [measurement-gap, overhead-myth]
firstMilestone: A free, self-guided version of the advisory process, published alongside the Impact Measurement Toolkit and tried with five small nonprofits.
help:
  - Open an issue labeled program describing a measurement method that worked for a small organization.
  - If you evaluate programs professionally and could advise pro bono, open an issue labeled program.
  - Try the Impact Measurement Toolkit with your organization and report what was missing.
related: [/tools/impact-measurement-toolkit/, /tools/cost-effectiveness-model-kit/, /open-problems/the-overhead-replacement/, /record/myths/]
---

## Build an organization learning plan

[Open the nonprofit workspace](#partner-workspace-nonprofit-advisory) to define a decision, inspect evidence and full-cost gaps, assign proportionate actions and plan a learning checkpoint. A fictional example shows the workflow without claiming results from a real organization. Save and edit records, then export a plan for discussion.

Use public, aggregate information and role names. Do not enter beneficiary records, personnel details or confidential documents. No advisor receives the plan, and no evaluation is performed automatically. The self-guided software is available; the five-organization trial and staffed service in the charter still require real partners and review.

## What it is

Nonprofit Advisory would help charities, especially small ones, answer the questions donors should be asking: what changed because of this work, and what did it really cost? It would be the other side of [Donor Advisory](/programs/donor-advisory/). One would help givers ask better questions. This one would help organizations answer them.

## How it works

An advisor would work with an organization’s staff for a few months. Together they would name the outcomes that matter, choose the simplest credible way to check them and borrow from [Evidence Reviews](/programs/evidence-reviews/) wherever existing research already covers the work. They would also build an honest picture of costs, including the staff, systems and evaluation that results depend on, using the [Impact Measurement Toolkit](/tools/impact-measurement-toolkit/) and the [Cost-Effectiveness Model Kit](/tools/cost-effectiveness-model-kit/).

Everything the advisor helps produce would belong to the organization, and the method would be published so others can follow it without an advisor. Advisors would be funded independently of the organizations they help and of those organizations’ funders, so the advice serves the mission rather than a sale.

## Why it matters for the system

The [Measurement Gap](/diagnosis/measurement-gap/) concerns the resources and methods needed to estimate effects. A small team may need evaluation partners rather than running a study alone. A shared advisory service, backed by a published method, would bring that skill within reach.

The [Overhead Myth](/diagnosis/overhead-myth/) survives because the overhead ratio is easy to find and results aren’t. An organization that can show what it achieved per dollar, and explain what its systems cost, gives donors a better number to look at and a reason to stop starving the systems that make results possible.

## Risks and limits

Measurement takes staff time away from the work itself. Advisors would match the method to the size of the decision it informs, and sometimes the honest advice is that a small program should borrow evidence rather than run its own study. Until partners, funding and a proper legal and governance setup are in place, the program accepts no money.

## What success looks like

Within five years, the self-guided version is widely used, and organizations that used it publish outcomes and full costs that donors can compare.