{"id":236,"date":"2009-07-12T22:27:33","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T02:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"\/news_blogs\/john\/?p=236"},"modified":"2023-05-02T13:52:19","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T17:52:19","slug":"so-what-do-you-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2009\/07\/12\/so-what-do-you-do\/","title":{"rendered":"“So, what do you do?”"},"content":{"rendered":"
This entry is part 1 of 12 in the series Harvard Business School<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>

 “What do you do?”<\/h2>\n

That was the opening question at my Harvard Business School<\/strong> course on Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management<\/a>. How many times a day do you get asked this question? I had already answered it at least 20 times today as I met the other students in the class. As part of the registration process we had all described what our charities do, and now the prof had gone through our answers and pre-selected who he wanted to ask this question of, “What do<\/em> you do?” Most of the people answered with a description of their services or programs.<\/p>\n

You’ll remember the story often told of a person walking by a construction site and asking three workers what they are doing. One says, “I’m cementing these stones together.” Another says, “I’m building a wall.” And the third says, “I’m building a cathedral!” The story is always told with the point that the correct answer is the third one.<\/p>\n

“That depends!”<\/h2>\n

The surprising thing I learned today was that you need several answers to the question “What do you do?” because the answer depends on who’s asking. It turns out that all three answers from the construction site are quite okay. Here’s how you decide how to describe what you do.<\/p>\n

A logic model helps<\/h2>\n

Start with a logic model<\/a>, <\/strong>which shows how you move from inputs to activities to outputs to outcomes to impacts. This chain, stretching from inputs to impacts, has some characteristics as you move along it:<\/p>\n