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Financing Not Fundraising: Assess Your Nonprofit's Financial Model

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I am amazed by the reaction of some nonprofit leaders when faced with a budget shortfall. Some simply shake their head in innocent confusion, some blame an “inexperienced” development director or a “checked-out” board, and others throw together a knee-jerk fundraising event in order to stem the tide. But a much better approach, when you […]

Live Chat: Fundraising Without Sacrificing Mission

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As I mentioned earlier this week, I participated in a Chronicle of Philanthropy Live Chat on Tuesday with Karina Mangu-Ward from ArtsFwd. We were talking about how to connect money and mission. The Live Chat was a lot of fun, and we got some great questions from the audience. Below is an excerpt from the […]

Financing Not Fundraising: Connect Money to Your Strategic Plan

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If fundraising is the biggest challenge of the nonprofit sector, then strategic planning is only second to it. But the crazy thing is, if you connect the two (strategic planning and raising money) you not only will be more financially sustainable, but you will also achieve more social change. Money and strategy should never be […]

How to Convince Your Board You Need a Strategic Plan

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It amazes me how board members can sometimes stand in the way of the nonprofit for which they are supposedly the chief supporters.  And the executive director can be incredibly lonely when she sees, but the board does not, what the organization desperately needs. This is often true with a strategic plan, which I believe […]

The Dire Consequences of Poor Nonprofit Strategy

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There was a really interesting article in the Wall Street Journal recently about the New York City Opera that dramatically illustrates how critical a nonprofit’s strategic alignment of mission, money and competence is. I’ve written before that for a nonprofit to be truly effective and sustainable, three things must be aligned: Their mission, or reason […]