Category: Human Resources
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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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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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Invest in professional development
A recent Huffington Post blog article focused on the importance of the nonprofit sector investing in professional development. As a whole, the sector has a poor track record in training…
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Hire for things other than just existing skills
One of my pet peeves when talking to those doing hiring for nonprofit organizations is an overemphasis on finding people with the right existing skills. A recent article suggests the…
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A fascinating video about motivation
The question I keep asking myself after repeatedly re-watching this video is: what are the implications for nonprofit organizations? Some implications are fairly straightforward: For example, with very few exceptions,…
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Get it done
I sometimes feel like there’s two types of people, those who talk about doing things and those that do them. Talkers tend to talk a good game at first, but…
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Nonprofit leadership traits
In doing their hiring processes, most boards focus on what skills they want their Executive Director to have. In my experience, it’s equally if not more important to identify the…
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Should you hire for skill or spirit?
I’m not sure I’d use the term “spirit,” but I definitely think too many nonprofits hire based solely on who has the experience/skill and not enough attention is paid to…
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When do you hire a Development Director?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the transition of organization from all-volunteer, to their first Executive Director, to the build out of additional staff. One of the recurring questions…