Meeting the information needs of charity trustees: can Enterprise Performance Management Systems help?

Third Sector Organisations (TSOs) have multiple purposes, i.e. financial stability as well as their mission, often operate in complicated circumstances and report to multiple stakeholders. This paper shows that information is not being used as effectively as it could be for regulation and performance management in this sector. A preliminary study of secondary cases indicates that Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) systems could help to address this problem, because of their capabilities to combine, and subsequently analyse, data from various, internal and external, sources. Further interdisciplinary investigation of current practice and potential developments for the use of EPM in charity reporting and performance management is proposed with the expectation that this could enhance effectiveness in the sector.