Last year, former Echoing Green Fellows, Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant, released their groundbreaking book, Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits. Leslie and Heather spent more than three years researching and pondering a seemingly straightforward question: What makes great nonprofits great? To answer it, they identified and studied twelve high-impact nonprofits (including three that were funded by Echoing Green). Their findings are important touchstones for all of us in the social sector who are working towards positive social change. They tell us that being an extraordinary nonprofit isn’t about building an organization and scaling it up. It’s also not about perfect management or top-notch marketing, or even having a large budget. Rather, great nonprofits are great because they find effective ways to leverage other sectors of society (nonprofit, government, business) to create extraordinary impact. Great nonprofits are catalysts—they transform the system around them to achieve maximum impact or greater good.

Embedded in the book are, I believe, some really crucial insights that if adopted wholesale would radically change and improve the social sector. First, we need to shift our focus from processes to results. The nonprofits profiled in the book are maniacally focused on results. They are very pragmatic and will use just about any tool in their toolbox to make progress. There are no sacred cows; it’s all about finding what works. Second, at a time when scaling up organizations is all the rage, Forces for Good makes the point that scale of impact should not be equated with growth. A nonprofit can achieve large-scale social impact without expanding beyond a single site and budget size is not the sine qua non indicator of success. Finally, don’t be fooled by the business-like language and approach that typifies the field of social entrepreneurship. High-impact nonprofits are high-impact because they are in the business of building social movements. Much of their success depends on building social and organizational networks committed to their organization and cause.

Forces for Good is a must-read for anyone interested in social entrepreneurship and social change. It is also an incredibly fun read and page-turner!