Creating more strategic, financially savvy, and confident nonprofit leaders and organizations.
In an ideal world, one of the things a nonprofit board of directors does is annually evaluate the performance of the executive director. But let’s be honest, how often does that actually happen? I once had an executive director so desperate for feedback about her job performance from a board who refused to evaluate her that she hired me to […]
In this month’s Social Velocity interview, I’m talking with Kathy Reich. Kathy leads the Ford Foundation’s BUILD initiative both in the United States and in 10 global regions. BUILD is an essential part of the foundation’s strategy to reduce inequality, a strategy arising from the conviction that healthy civil society organizations are essential to driving and […]
In today’s Social Velocity interview, I’m talking with Isaac Castillo, Director of Outcomes, Assessment, and Learning at Venture Philanthropy Partners, where he leads VPP’s approach to data collection, data reporting, and outcome measurement. Prior to coming to VPP, Isaac served as the Deputy Director for the DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI). At DCPNI, Isaac led efforts to […]
Note: I was asked by The Center for Effective Philanthropy to review their latest research report, Sharing What Matters: Perspectives on Foundation Transparency, released in late February, and provide my thoughts about it for their on-going blog series on the report. Below is my post which originally appeared on the CEP blog. Sharing What Matters: Perspectives on […]
From an historic blizzard that blanketed the country, to tackling poverty, to the leadership of Black Lives Matter, to technology in the new year, to using social media to stop ISIS, to advice for Charity Navigator, January was an interesting month in the world of social change. Here is my pick of the 10 best reads […]
There is an interesting report out today on the effectiveness of the Social Innovation Fund (SIF). Authored by the Social Innovation Research Center (SIRC), a nonpartisan nonprofit research organization, the new report details what has worked and what hasn’t in the six year history of the SIF. Launched by the Obama administration in 2009, the SIF — a program within […]
In today’s Social Velocity interview I’m talking with Mary Kopczynski Winkler, senior research associate with the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute. Mary is a nationally recognized expert in the field of performance measurement and management. She is a founding member of the Leap of Reason Ambassadors Community, a private community […]
There were some pretty exciting things happening in the world of social innovation last month. From a new fund to make philanthropy more effective, to a new blog series written by funders making the case for investing in nonprofit leadership, to some ideas for making performance measurement more accessible to small nonprofits and arts and culture organizations, to […]
Between my own time away from social media in August, the general end of summer quiet, and of course, the glut of posts about the Ice Bucket challenge (of which I have already said my piece), my list of great reads in August is admittedly slim. But there was some interesting debate, most notably about “strategic philanthropy” and […]
Note: Third in my list of guest bloggers this summer is David Henderson. David’s professional focus is on improving the way social sector organizations use information to address poverty. Here is his guest post: I was recently turned down for a position at a startup-up big-data company focused on the philanthropic sector because I’m “too […]
