Non-Profit Organizations and Social Audit : A Case in Scotland

Abstract

Non-profit organizations (NPOs) are expected to play an important role in many fields including social welfare. It is necessary for them to evaluate their performance and with good grounds demonstrate that they are contributing to public interests. But how properly is their performance being evaluated, with objective measures for that being generally absent? As an answer to this question, "community businesses", a type of NPOs in Scotland, have recently developed an original system called "social audit". In it the performance of NPOs is evaluated from different viewpoints of "stakeholders" of the organisation, that is, all those people who are affected by or who can affect the organisation. That multi-perspective given by them makes credible evaluation possible. Despite some problems to be overcome, "social audit" is one of the most suitable systems for both evaluating the performance of NPOs and demonstrating the impact of their activities on society.