Blog
You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting to the blog as often lately. There is a good reason for this, and I want to share it with you, since you all have been such wonderfully loyal and engaged readers. I launched the Social Velocity blog in September of 2008, nine years ago this […]
In today’s Social Velocity blog interview, I’m talking with Eric Weinheimer, President and CEO of Forefront, the only regional association that represents grantmakers, nonprofits, advisors, and social entrepreneurs. With 1,100 members in Illinois, Forefront provides education, advocacy, and research, and mobilizes its members around issues that are important to the nonprofit sector. Prior to his current […]
Recently, fundraising maven Kay Sprinkel Grace wrote a post on the GuideStar blog outlining four questions to ask prospective board members when interviewing them for board positions. While I heartily agree with her that nonprofit leaders should institute and follow a rigorous due diligence process in recruiting new board members (rather than just shoving anyone […]
It has been a really difficult couple of weeks. And I think for those of us in the social change sector — the sector that works for equity, justice, compassion, inclusion, civility — these days have been particularly challenging. The events in Charlottesville have made obvious that there is so much work to do, and […]
Since I was on vacation (and off social media) for a chunk of June, I decided to combine the June and July 10 Great Reads lists into one. But that proved to be a tricky feat, since there was no shortage of activity in the world of social change during those two months. From the […]
Beyond the mistakes nonprofit leaders often make in staffing their fundraising function, the relationship itself between a nonprofit executive director and the development director (or whatever you call the staff person in charge of bringing money in the door) can often be fraught. In an ideal world, the executive director and development director have a symbiotic […]
In today’s Social Velocity blog interview, I’m talking with Grant Oliphant, president of The Heinz Endowments (and frequent contributor to their excellent blog). Prior to running The Heinz Endowments, Grant was president and chief executive officer of The Pittsburgh Foundation for six years. Before that, he served as press secretary to the late U.S. Sen. John Heinz […]
Let’s talk about nonprofit collaboration for a second. Funders and thought leaders often extol the virtues of collaboration among nonprofit organizations as a way to maximize increasingly limited resources. But pushing nonprofits to blindly collaborate, just for the sake of saving some money (“Can’t you all just work together?”), is really doing no one any […]
I am back from vacation, and as I suspected it would, the space has given me a new lease on life. I have returned with more energy, more hope, more perspective, and less worry. As I said before I left, I really encourage you also to take some time off this summer. Reject the pervasive […]
In this month’s Social Velocity interview, I’m talking with David Grant. David is the former President and CEO of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and past chair of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers. He now consults nationally with nonprofits, foundations, and schools and is the author of The Social Profit Handbook: The Essential Guide to Setting […]
Consulting Services
Get Email Updates
Stay up to date on the nonprofit and philanthropic world.
Recent Tweets
"The reach & influence nonprofits have are valuable assets. Not to deploy them on behalf of a stronger civic society is counterproductive and civically & morally irresponsible" https://t.co/g5g9YALa2K
Jeff Bezos’ $2 billion donation to build preschools and fight homelessness is morally fraught: https://t.co/yo7UbmgoG6 #philanthropy #nonprofit h/t @Cingib