Five Crucial Questions
“Do more for more with less.” How often do we hear that suggestion, primarily from funders, but also from board members and even executive directors? To promote doing more for more with fewer resources presumes you were either previously wasting money, spending more than you should have been and/or you don’t care about the quality of services you are providing and the results you are achieving with your clients.
There are, however, some incidences where less is more. For example, putting less policy and unnecessary specifics Read more
Doing more, For More, With Less
While I cannot do anything about our country’s obsession with the belief that bigger is always better, I can take umbrage with folks who prefer the maxim “bigger is better” over that of “quality, not quantity.” Those who prefer the former over the latter may do well in the for-profit sector, but certainly do not serve the nonprofit sector well.
I was reminded of my dismay when reading a study released this past October by Community Brands. “Nonprofit Finance Study: The dynamics and challenges of growth,” Read more
I Give, Therefore I Am
As nonprofits are pondering just how much money will come in over the remaining days of the calendar year, it seems fitting, in a sad, sadistic way, I suppose, to report on a study with the subtitle, “American donors are far less generous than they think they are.” But maybe some donors will read this and as a result decide to go back to their checkbooks.
This study, the second in a series of research called “The Donor Mindset,” looks at American donor’s actual generosity and Read more
3 Monkey Culture
My holiday wish to all employees is that your leader(s) comes to understand the importance of culture. Forget laws and regulations – they are the reactions to the failure of established, protective, positive cultures. They are a last, and sorry, resort for a culture that has failed to do its work and to demand, and then reward, the expected and only acceptable behavior.
There are so many examples of cultures gone awry. How about with the current craze: writing inclusion policies.* If you have to write Read more
Whither compassion?
As Thanksgiving approaches, I cannot help but focus more on the communities in which we live, and the responsibility that those of us who “have” have for those who do not. And, yet, in these times, it seems it has become all too easy for the haves to shirk that responsibility, to find reasons why it isn’t their duty. Have we as a society lost our understanding of compassion?
This semester, I’m teaching one of my favorite classes in our Masters in Nonprofit Leadership program: governance. Read more
The Accidental Board President
Although the position of board president is one of the most critical ones in a nonprofit, there is often little thought and intentionality put into the process of filling the position. I literally have seen board presidents elected because they left the room at the wrong time. Many of us have seen people elected as board president because they were the only ones whose arms could be twisted to take the job. Too many of us have seen the position filled by the person “next Read more
Make Time for Serious Leisure
In case you aren’t aware, all leisure is not the same, nor is it only what most think it is. As Merriam-Webster so nicely puts it, “freedom provided by the cessation of activities.” In 1973, Robert Stebbins began his work that would eventually lead to a three-part typology of leisure: “casual leisure,” “project-based leisure” and “serious pursuits.” Serious pursuits is, itself, divided into subcategories: “devotee work” and “serious leisure.” It is serious leisure that just may make you a better leader.
According to Stebbins, serious leisure is Read more
The Indiscernible Nonprofit
As a sector, we are not:
thanked enough
appreciated enough
recognized enough.
Granted, none of us chooses to work in this sector because we are looking for thanks, appreciation or recognition. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t accept any of it or be pleased to receive any of it. But that is, without doubt, not our motivation.
Reading Sandra Day O’Connor’s public letter explaining her need to leave public life was yet another admonition from a long-serving public figure on the importance of appreciation of our democratic history, of Read more
