Congress may have one idea of purpose and objectives, business another, state and private grantees, yet another. Nonprofits can play a role in defining agency missions and goals to better reflect the needs of the people they serve, who often do not have powerful means to influence government. Most are published on the Internet. This access can provide valuable information to nonprofits about the goals and indicators agencies are proposing to use in determining the focus of their activities. Nonprofits could become involved with making sure the goals, the measures, and the indicators of success are useful and valuable.
Many nonprofits act as grantees for federal government programs.
As agencies are required to set goals, provide data to support the accomplishment of those goals, and indicate results, many nonprofits will likely be subject to performance measurement as part of the grant requirements. Since GPRA requires the performance report to be directly linked to the agency's budget request, GPRA could be a tool for decreasing or increasing an agency's budget. This should be a powerful incentive for nonprofits to pay attention to GPRA, since it could directly affect the funding that an agency receives. The following list of issues surrounding GPRA is not inclusive, but a starting point for thinking about GPRA by nonprofits. Arguably, the real meat and potatoes of GPRA is the performance plan, which lists the indicators by which success will be measured.