NMDP wins Award for Excellence from Balanced Scorecard

The Minneapolis-based National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) was recognized with a 2010 Award for Excellence from the Balanced Scorecard Institute on Feb. 16. The institute presents awards to organizations which have taken the skills and knowledge they have learned from the balanced scorecard approach and translated it into real results for their organizations and the people they serve. The NMDP is one of two recipients of this year’s award.

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system used to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organizational performance against strategic goals. The NMDP uses the balanced scorecard approach to continuously improve its life-saving work of facilitating marrow and cord blood transplants for thousands of patients with diseases like leukemia and lymphoma.

“Although we only implemented the balanced scorecard approach a couple years ago, we have already seen improvements in our operations,” said Michael Boo, chief strategy officer for NMDP. “The approach helps us focus on our ambitious goal to drastically increase the number of transplants we facilitate by 2015. Everything we do must move us closer to that goal – we only invest our time and resources in projects that will.”

In addition to the award, another nonprofit or government agency will receive a scholarship in the NMDP’s honor to cover the tuition costs for one of the Balanced Scorecard Institute’s three-day introductory courses.