Blog
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Why don’t groups do strategic planning
Instead of thinking about all the reasons groups can benefit from strategic planning, a friend recently asked me: why do some groups fail to do strategic planning? Here are the…
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Guest blog: Grantwriting as a Team-building exercise
Guest blog by Sami Fournier of Element Exercise. Faced with the prospect of submitting a grant proposal, consider what a great opportunity you have before you. Beyond being a challenge…
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Connecting fiscal management to strategy
I recently published a guest article for 501Commons on the importance of building a fiscal management system that connects with strategic decision-making. The main point: you should track revenues and…
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Learning to let things go “wrong.”
One of the trickier challenges facing a nonprofit Executive Director with supervisory responsibilities is leaning to let things go “wrong.” If you are to empower your staff to have areas…
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Ideas for Donor Involvement
I once talked to an Executive Director who resisted inviting major donors to volunteer or become more involved because “I don’t want to seem like I’m bothering them. Their gift…
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Guest blog: 5 Questions to Ask When Using Marketing to Grow Your Non-Profit
Guest Blog by Natalie Henry Bennon — [email protected] Marketing gets a bad rap. And sometimes it’s deserved. I don’t like being told I need a new thing when really I…
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Have you sharpened your axe lately?
A friend was recently describing to me a challenge he faced as a new board member of a relatively healthy organization, but one that seemed to have a frenetic culture.…
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Evaluating on two levels
When talking to organizations about evaluation, I often find myself explaining evaluation on two levels. These levels ask two related, but different questions. 1. Did the organization take the specific…
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One big idea and three takeaways
I recently was given good advice worth sharing. In any event you are putting on, you should be able to identify the single, one-sentence big idea that will get people…