The Comprehensive Organizational Assessment
A three-tier diagnostic that measures your nonprofit organization, your fundraising program, and the leaders within it.
Three Tiers
Often, assessments are conducted that examine a single layer and stop. A board evaluation reviews governance. A fundraising audit examines revenue. A staff survey captures morale. Each answer is true, and each is partial. Partial pictures produce partial plans.
The TPA Comprehensive Organizational Assessment works differently. It assesses your organization across three connected tiers, from the full enterprise down to the individual leader, and shows you how each layer shapes the others.
Tier One: Your Whole Organization
Five capacity areas form the foundation: governance and leadership, mission and strategy, program delivery and impact, strategic relationships and fundraising. You see where your organization stands and where it needs to build.
Tier Two: Your Fundraising Program
The Development Health Diagnostic goes deep on the seven areas driving revenue, from donor retention and board engagement to systems, case for support, and planned giving readiness. When tier one flags fundraising, tier two tells you why.
Tier Three: Your People
The Individual Growth Assessment measures the performance, well-being, and growth of the leaders who do the work. Burnout, role confusion and stalled development show up here long before they reach your numbers.
The value comes from nesting the three together. When running only one assessment, you misdiagnose. A fundraising audit alone suggests that you fix the fundraising program. An organizational assessment alone may suggest that you hire more staff. Both are chasing symptoms. The composite view is what catches this. When you lay all three tiers side by side and the same theme surfaces at every level, you stop treating the symptoms and treat the cause.
You finish with one honest baseline, a ranked list of priorities, and a clear view of what to fix first. You stop guessing where to spend your time and start working from evidence.
The Five Capacity Areas Examined
The Engagement Process
The assessment runs in six phases over a typical six- to eight-week window. Timelines are adjusted based on organization size and respondent availability.
Phase 1: Scope and Launch
We confirm the engagement scope, identify respondents for each tier, and set the timeline. Hold a launch conversation with leadership to frame the purpose. The goal is an honest baseline. This is not a staff performance review. The assessment results remain confidential and inform the plan.
Phase 2: Data Collection
We administer all three tiers: distributing the Organizational Assessment to the board, leadership, and senior staff, distributing the DHD to leadership and the development lead, and then distributing the IGA to each leader individually.
Phase 3: Synthesis and Scoring
We tally each instrument and assess, building the composite picture: organizational stage, fundraising stage, and individual profiles. We look for patterns across tiers, not isolated numbers, and note (for example) where a low organizational score traces to a fundraising gap, and where a fundraising gap traces to an individual at risk.
Phase 4: Findings Presentation and Debrief
We deliver the findings in a structured debrief. Leading with strengths, then identifying the priority gaps. We connect the tiers so organizations can see the through-line from individual to organization.
Phase 5: Roadmap Creation
Following the debrief, we translate the top gaps into a sequenced action plan. We order the work so foundational fixes come before growth moves. Owners are assigned, and timelines are established. Each action is tied to the tier and area it addresses, so progress stays measurable.
Phase 6: Re-Assessment
Following plan development, we set the re-assessment cadence. Individuals retake the IGA in 90 days. The organization retakes Tier 1 and the DHD annually, or at the close of a defined improvement cycle. Re-assessment turns a one-time snapshot into a track record of movement.
