Nonprofit actions should be accountable and open to the scrutiny of others. IRS regulations that require nonprofits to make their Form 990s more accessible are a reform of this type. So are proposals that require corporations to disclose their philanthropic gifts to shareholders. Like the war on waste, however, watchful eye measures don't take nonprofit claims at face value. Instead, they mobilize external pressures to prompt nonprofits to shape up.
Nonprofits inevitably complain that reporting requirements are burdensome and interfering.
Finally, there is liberation management. Inspired by the entrepreneurial idealism of Tom Peters' In Search of Excellence and David Osborne's Reinventing Government , proponents teach organizations to become more efficient by deregulating their bureaucracies and introducing competitive methods. They say it is counterproductive to manage organizations through layers of oversight and checklists of rules. The measure of a nonprofit's effectiveness should be its outcomes, not its inputs. The problem here is the cost and practicality of finding statistical ways to measure outcomes.