Why Nonprofit Efficiency Metrics Are Designed to Fail (And What Should Replace Them)

Nonprofit efficiency metrics come from factory management systems designed to control workers—not measure human services impact. This article exposes how Scientific Management (Taylorism) was imported into philanthropy in the 1900s, creating overhead ratios and performance quotas that measure survival, not outcomes. MacKenzie Scott proved trust-based funding works. The sector needs a paradigm shift from efficiency to conditions that enable impact.