I get a similar question a lot, “We really want to move our nonprofit out of startup mode but don’t know what the right first steps are.” Although the definition of a “startup” is an organization that has been around for only a few years, there are many nonprofits that are still in startup mode […]
nonprofit hurdles
Why Do Nonprofit Leaders Get in Their Own Way?
Can we talk about crazy for a minute? I’ve recently witnessed some behavior from nonprofit leaders that made my jaw drop: A board chairman convinced the rest of his board to turn away a donor who wanted to give the nonprofit a significant amount of money to fund organizational capacity (strategic planning, coaching, fundraising training) […]
How to Move Your Nonprofit Board from Fundraising to Financing
Note: I was asked to write a guest post for the Nonprofit About.com site about how to move a nonprofit’s board of directors from fundraising to financing. An excerpt of this blog post is below, and you can read the entire post on the Nonprofit About.com site here. Nonprofit boards of directors are notoriously […]
Financing Not Fundraising: Stop Apologizing for Needing Money
It becomes increasingly obvious to me that the nonprofit sector suffers from a lack of confidence. Centuries of being sidelined as “charities” while the real work of the world (business) took center stage has made the nonprofit sector continually apologize for the work they do and how they do it. Nowhere is this more true […]
Financing Not Fundraising: Enlighten Your Donors
It used to be that a nonprofit leader receiving a check from a donor would smile politely, say a big “Thank You” and go on her way. But just as (seemingly) every aspect of the world as we know it is changing, so too is philanthropy. We are starting to question long-held assumptions about how […]