Creating more strategic, financially savvy, and confident nonprofit leaders and organizations.
As a nonprofit leader you no doubt face an endless barrage of critical decisions. Should we grow this program? Do we add this new staff position? Should we invite this new board member to join? Should we pursue this new funder? The list goes on and on. And often the direction nonprofit leaders choose is […]
As part of the martyr complex from which so many of them suffer, nonprofit leaders often think that it’s best to push themselves and their organizations harder, faster, farther. Nonprofit leaders are continually faced with new opportunities – new client populations to serve, new demands for program expansion from funders, new partnership opportunities. And while […]
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 […]
You know the Nonprofit Savior Complex, I know you do. It’s when a nonprofit leader begins to believe that she (and only she) cares enough, knows enough, or is enough to fix the massive problem she cares so deeply about. The positive side to the Savior Complex is it compels people who see an injustice […]
Recently, fundraising maven Kay Sprinkel Grace wrote a post on the GuideStar blog outlining four questions to ask potential 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 […]
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 […]
It amazes me how many nonprofit leaders form their organizational strategy, their fundraising pitch, or their program model inside their nonprofit’s own walls. In order to be successful, you must understand the market in which you operate. And in order to understand it, you must go investigate it. It is a simple fact that nonprofits must compete […]
The other day I was talking with a nonprofit leader and was suddenly struck by how much his story echoed so many of the stories I hear from nonprofit leaders. See if your nonprofit fits some or all aspects of the scenario he faces: His board is passionate about the mission and wants to be helpful, but they don’t really contribute […]
In this month’s Social Velocity interview, I’m talking with Jane Wei-Skillern. Jane Wei-Skillern is the co-author of the groundbreaking 2008 Stanford Social Innovation Review article, “The Networked Nonprofit,” and a leading researcher on networks for social change. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Social Sector Leadership at the University of California Berkeley’s […]
I recently received a note from a blog reader who disagreed with my argument that a nonprofit’s board of directors should be charged with raising 10% of their nonprofit’s budget. Not only did this reader disagree with the idea of setting a 10% board fundraising goal, but he disagreed with linking board governance and fundraising at all. As […]
So, now that you know the power of the word “Yet” to move you from scarcity to abundance, it’s time to start thinking about what you really want. Perhaps the most egregious part of being stuck in scarcity is that you get so used to thinking there is never enough that you lose touch with […]
Despite the fact that we are in the midst of a global health and economic crisis, I still believe that abundance is possible. In fact, I believe that an abundance mindset is what is required to lead us beyond this very crisis. Let me explain this heresy. We are currently surrounded by — in fact […]
There was a really interesting report in the Chronicle of Philanthropy last week about how nonprofits are losing top talent because they aren’t paying enough. Shocking news, I know. But let’s talk for a minute about what is underlying this and how we might move beyond it. The problem, in my mind, is that nonprofit […]
Recently I was leading the final board meeting of a strategic planning process for one of my clients, and something interesting happened. A board member, who was very much stuck in a scarcity mindset, threatened to derail the very exciting, bigger direction we had charted. The new strategic plan we were presenting to the board […]
In the age of Big Data there has been a real push among funders, government, and thought leaders to encourage nonprofit leaders to make decisions based on data. I have been among the many who have heralded the importance of gathering and using data to improve performance. And I still believe data is incredibly important. […]
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 […]
There is a tool that I think is incredibly helpful to nonprofit leaders trying to figure out where to focus their resources and how to plan for the future. Indeed it is typically one of the first activities in the strategic planning process I use with my clients. The Program Matrix helps a nonprofit board […]
Financial sustainability seems to be the Holy Grail of the nonprofit sector. Everyone wants it, but few know how to find it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I firmly believe that financial sustainability is attainable for any nonprofit, as long as board and staff are willing to ask the right questions and do […]
In the nonprofit sector the words “leader” and “manager” are sometimes tossed around interchangeably. But the fact is that they are two very different, and equally necessary, elements to an effective and sustainable nonprofit organization. A leader provides an inspiring, motivating big strategy for staff and board to get behind. She asks hard questions and constantly pushes […]
One of the biggest complaints about nonprofit strategic plans is that once created, they just sit on a shelf. A strategic plan is completely wasted effort if you neglect the final step of operationalizing it. And by that I mean creating an annual tactical plan and monitoring process that directly tie to the larger strategy. In fact, […]
