Bright Star Case Study

The Case of Bright Star: Accountability and its Effect on the Mission

Annotation
Christensen, R. & Ebrahim, A. (2006). How does accountability affect mission? The case of a nonprofit serving immigrants and refugees. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 17(2), 195-209.

Summary Historically, the nonprofit sector operated on the perception of benevolence. Currently, Christen and Ebrahim (2006) state that the “nonprofit status no longer places an organization beyond reproach” (p. 195). Therefore, the authors examine Bright Star, a nonprofit serving immigrants and refugees, to explain the systems of accountability ensuring the effectiveness of the mission of the organization (Christen & Ebrahim, 2006). Since the

However, we propose an examination into the two fundamental questions: Does the attention onto upward accountability enhance the organization’s mission and how do practitioners comply with the mission in a stringent reporting arena (Christen & Ebrahim, 2006). Moreover, our research into scholar’s studies concludes that intense reporting of upward accountability hinders downward or lateral accountability and the mission (Christen & Ebrahim, 2006). Accordingly, my associate and I wrote this article to investigate those assumptions and provide evidence of accountability pressures on day-to-day organizational life to explain the impact on mission-based activities (Christen & Ebrahim, 2006).

Ethical Principles and Values In our article, we present definitions of to demonstrate the measures utilized to interpret nonprofit accountability. In our opinion, the following definitions provide perspective into an organization’s ethics and values, especially in the implementation of upward, lateral, and downward accountability. The multiple systems of accountability are defined below:
•Accountability: “being answerable to stakeholders for the actions of the organization, whether by internal or external initiation” (Christen

In other words, the reporting demands of the organization lead to concerns of implementing mission activities that were easier to provide rather than the best methods to meet the organization’s goals and mission (Christen & Ebrahim, 2006). Therefore, we suggest the following models as organizational strategy solutions to manage tensions, improve accountability, and effectively adhere to the mission.

•Prioritizing Lateral Accountability: Focusing on Staff oFrequent meetings provide a forum of accountability of staff members and ensures focus on the mission through coordinating services, such as medical appointments coordinated with clients’ work schedules (Christen & Ebrahim, 2006).

•Staff Empowerment Through Organizational Slack oAlthough rules are important in determining the course of action, we suggest an organization build slack to allow flexibility of staff to best serve the clients and achieve the mission beyond regulations (Christen & Ebrahim, 2006).

•Tight Coupling of Evaluation with Job