Do Executive Directors Still Want to Learn?
Do as I say, not as I do. Is that the message executive directors are sending the rest of the employees and the board of the organizations they lead? Our anecdotal evidence has me worried.
After many months of market research and planning, The Nonprofit Center launched Executive Director University (EDU) in March. EDU is designed to meet the call that we heard from executive directors: “we want to learn in groups of just other executive directors and we want topics tailored to our needs, Read more
April 11th, 2008 1 Comment Cogito, ergo sum
One of the positive things about writing a blog is that it gives the author time to stop what she is doing, sit back and, OMG, think and reflect. For those who read blogs and respond, (and the response is the critical part here), the same thing is true: you sit back, contemplate an issue, form a response, and share it with the world. Giving oneself permission to stop work (that is, doing your share to deliver on the Read more
April 4th, 2008 4 Comments Is Public Service Indentured Servitude?
Last week, Harvard Law School announced that it would start paying the tuition of third year law students who promised to work in government or for nonprofits for five years post graduation. Apparently Harvard heard that the nonprofit sector isn’t attracting folks like it once did, and surmised that graduating with only $82,000 in debt (as opposed to more than $123,000, which would be the current cost of paying for all three years of law school) might make it easier for those inclined to public Read more
March 28th, 2008 0 Comment The Double Standard for Nonprofits and For-Profits
We live in a world where double standards are the accepted norm. As a society, we are slowly working on redressing certain double standards, as in race and gender. It’s time to call attention to an enduring double standard for for-profits and nonprofits.
We hear again and again that nonprofits are businesses and they should be run as such. I couldn’t agree more, but with a few caveats, such as tempering our bottom line with our mission and having to raise some of our income Read more
March 14th, 2008 4 Comments Yo Nonprofit Boards: Get Your Heads Out of the Sand
This is a public health announcement: there is two-pronged epidemic of poor judgment—severe to extreme–affecting the nonprofit sector and it must act quickly to immunize itself.
Yes, I am sounding the alarm because nonprofit boards are risking the health, well-being, and in tough times we could even say survival, of the organizations they are shepherding by keeping their heads in the sand. No longer is the crisis of executive leadership turnover looming; it is already upon us.
And what are boards doing to address this? Read more
February 29th, 2008 2 Comments Weight Watcher’s for Nonprofits (Or Does this 501(c)(3) Make Me Look Fat???
Why is it that Americans always associate growth with good? (Except, of course, when it comes to personal weight growth, which most people generally perceive as bad.) The bigger the better, the more the merrier, etc. And the bigger something gets, the “more better” it is.
Well, I beg to differ. In recent years, the rate of growth in the nonprofit sector has outpaced that in the for profit sector. And people hail that as a great sign. Of what, I ask? Does this growth mean Read more
February 22nd, 2008 0 Comment 