North Stars

The Consortium’s work is founded upon six foundational principles, or North Stars.  They guide our work and mission. These foundational principles have been adapted from The Alliance for Strong Families.

Commitment to Outcomes – We have a commitment to the achievement and measurement of outcomes including collaborative work towards a common set of community-wide outcomes. Rather than measuring success by services delivered, we strive for the establishment of core measures that demonstrate impact in our community.

Capacity for Innovation – We support the development of the nonprofit ecosystem’s capacity for innovation through better data sharing and analysis, technology, agility and adaptability, and knowledge and leadership exchange. We call upon public and private funders to recognize the importance of innovation and support it through funding. Innovation and the ability to evolve and improve over time accelerates the entire ecosystem to higher performance, increased efficiency, and better outcomes. 

Strategic Partnerships – We prioritize strategic partnerships in which all members of the nonprofit ecosystem work together to establish deep and disruptive partnerships, mergers, affiliations, and networks to realize maximum value, efficiency, and impact. These strategic partnerships leverage assets to achieve better outcomes, reduce costs and redundancy, and foster innovation. We believe that public and private funding is necessary to encourage and support partnerships, mergers, affiliations, and network development activities.

New Financial Strategies – We support nonprofits in moving  to more modern outcomes-based contracting and procurement processes including diverse financial strategies and more mature financial risk management capabilities. This includes strategies such as saying no to contracts and grants that do not cover the full cost of service delivery, scenario planning, recovery and program continuity planning, benchmarking and self-rating, reporting, disclosure, and better back office operations systems to realize maximum value and impact. We also believe that public and private funding in support of partnerships, mergers, and network development activities is essential.

Regulatory Modernization – We call upon the government to work with nonprofits to review and update, for relevancy, the regulations, rules, and requirements in the nonprofit ecosystem, many of which are outdated, redundant, overlapping, and conflict with regulations from other agencies. 

Commitment to Racial Justice- We stand in solidarity with those who seek justice and racial equity and commit to listen, learn, and act to: address the policies and practices that influence racism, structural bias and inequity; connect to resources, organizations, and best practices to apply a race equity lens; and build capacity within our organizations and community to promote social and economic mobility and wellbeing for all residents.