Standards for All: Reimagining Nonprofit Practice

After five years of listening to Pennsylvania’s nonprofit leaders, PANO has released two new publications:

• Standards for All: What We Heard from Pennsylvania Nonprofit Leaders; and
• Values to Action Roadmap, a companion toolkit for nonprofits implementing the work.

Both are free and open-source.

Jump to: Standards for All Report | Values to Action Roadmap | How this Builds on the Standards

What We Heard

From 2021 through 2025, PANO convened nonprofit leaders, staff, and board members representing every region, size, and mission in the Commonwealth. Focus groups, interviews, and member sessions revealed the following again and again:

• Existing best-practice frameworks were built for a narrow slice of the sector;
• Compliance without context is not enough; and
• The how and who of nonprofit work matter as much as the what.

Those frameworks favor compliance over care, efficiency over equity, and donor comfort over community voice. That hurts small organizations, and holds back the well-resourced ones

The Report: Five Years of Listening

Standards for All summarizes findings from focus groups conducted from 2021 to 2024, and re-affirmed with members and constituents in 2025. Participants reflected on the Standards for Excellence®: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector, discussing what works in practice, where they see gaps, and what an evolution might look like.

The project was co-facilitated by PANO and Colmena Consulting, a research and strategy partner committed to advancing equity in the nonprofit sector.

This work lands at a moment when the sector is under intense financial, political, and structural pressure, and that’s why it’s such important work to share right now.

The Roadmap: From Insights to Action

Most best-practice frameworks tell nonprofits what to do. The Values to Action Roadmap asks two harder questions:

• How do nonprofits work?
• Who is the work for?

It’s a free, open-source tool any nonprofit can use to assess capacity beyond the checklist. It helps organizations center values, share power, and work in ways that fit their size, structure, and community. It’s built for organizations navigating challenges like the following:

• Aligning values with practice, and setting boundaries around action;
• Speaking up on behalf of constituents and missions in this moment;
• Growing capacity for shared leadership and collective decision-making;
• Translating policy to practice by building structures for trust and accountability; and
• Knowing where to start with capacity building when everything feels like a priority.

Inside you’ll find these tools:

• Personal learning resources to recalibrate leadership stances for this moment;
• Self-reflection and group exercises to examine practices and identify areas to grow;
• Links to trusted skill-building partners; and
• Tools and methods to use and adapt right now.

How This Builds On the Standards for Excellence

This work builds on the Standards For Excellence Institute’s (SEI) recent updates to the code, benchmarks, trainings, accreditation program, and assessment tools. Those updates respond to many of the same themes Pennsylvania nonprofit leaders raised during our listening project.

As a state partner, PANO is focused on what we are best positioned to add: local context and flavor, shaped by our members.

When participants referenced the Standards for Excellence in cohort sessions, they were reflecting on the educational resource packets published from 2014 to 2024. Many of those resources have since been updated and are available free to members of PANO.

Take Action

• Explore the updated Standards for Excellence resources.
• Dig into more resources for this moment at The PANO Navigator.
• Share your feedback on the report or Roadmap via our survey.
• Join us in July for the Nonprofit Basics Cohort, a pilot designed for small nonprofits putting these findings into practice.