I received some great responses about my last post, “Why Don’t We Make Big Bets on Nonprofits?” One of the recurring questions in those responses was “How do we change nonprofits and the nonprofit sector to be able to absorb bigger investments?” The fact is that a financial glass ceiling exists for nonprofits — a […]
Capacity Building
Why Don’t We Make Big Bets On Nonprofits?
One of the Giving Pledge philanthropists and co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, recently died. But at his death he was worth more than he was when he signed the Giving Pledge, a pledge that 186 of the wealthiest philanthropists have made to give away half of their net worth before they die. This inspired Alana […]
The Gentle Art of Taking a Break
In one of my coaching sessions with a nonprofit leader last week, we spent a good deal of time discussing how to take a break. But like so many leaders in the nonprofit sector, this exhausted, worn down, borderline burned-out nonprofit leader was very resistant to what every cell in her body was craving — […]
Let’s Stop Undervaluing Our Nonprofit Leaders
There is a fairly ubiquitous notion about the nonprofit sector. We as a society often believe (either consciously or subconsciously) that nonprofit leaders and their work are less valuable. Nonprofit leaders have been told for so long that they must scrape by without the amount of funding, people, or attention that they truly require. But […]
Nonprofit Leaders, Give Yourselves Permission
As human beings we are often held back by a sense of needing permission from someone (sometimes anyone) to do something we already know deep down is the right path. And certainly in the nonprofit sector with many and varied stakeholders to constantly engage and include, it can often seem that moving forward on anything […]