The Odds of Success
Long ago, at the start of my volunteer career in the nonprofit sector, a development expert told me that one of the most important ratios in her field was that of successful asks to number of asks made: how many asks did you have to make before receiving a positive response. This, she told me, was helpful not just for planning, but for morale.
I was reminded of this through a number of questions asked of me and observations made by a group of board members Read more
Partners in a Spirit of Service
The Whitman Institute, a funder that will sunset by 2022, devised what they call trust-based philanthropy. If ever a name were to say a lot, this is it. It recognizes that the traditional approach of a funder to a potential grantee is one of suspicion—one that asks the nonprofit to prove it is worthy of the funder’s support. It attempts to diminish, to the extent possible, the power dynamic inherent in the funder-funded pairing. (And while some funders have tried the use of semantics to Read more
What Matters to Donors?
For too many decades, nonprofits leaders have been plagued by the fear of overhead: too high and risk losing donors; too low and risk insufficient capacity to do all that needed doing. Then, Dan Pallotta did his famous TedTalk, the Overhead Myth letters came out from the three watchdog groups and Bridgespan and the Ford Foundation jointly suggested that it was time for donors to revamp their funding paradigm.
But, did things change? Sadly, no. Yes, there was a greater willingness to discuss the absurdity of Read more
Advocates for Social Justice
I have been having a lot of conversation with my masters students about the role nonprofits might play in the fight for social justice. Obviously, there are nonprofits whose explicit mission is all about social justice, working on behalf of a group being denied that essential American promise of the ability to pursue life, liberty and happiness, and all that entails. For those nonprofits, there is no question, but only up to a point: the point at which the current fight doesn’t fit within the Read more
The Nonprofit Rule of Threes?
Let’s see if the “rule of threes,” that general belief that concepts or ideas presented in threes are inherently more interesting, more enjoyable, and more memorable, applies to my current concerns about nonprofits.
Start with strategic planning. One thing that hasn’t changed in the nearly 40 years I’ve been working with nonprofits is that people don’t understand its purpose or value. Few organizations do it well; too many think it is a tool convenience rather than a solid road map, electing to follow it when convenient Read more
Status Quo Me to Death
Recent data continues to put the nonprofit sector as the third largest employer in America, behind retail and manufacturing. That ranking hasn’t changed over the past several decades, despite the continued growth of the nonprofit sector and the regular closings, reorganizations and other disruptions in retail and manufacturing. In fact, it would appear that a lot, though by no means all of retail, does a wonderful job of reinventing itself.
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Amazon started in 1994, Ebay in 1995. Moving along, we got Bonobos in 2007, Stitch Fix Read more
The Power of Disruptive Thinking
While I believe completely in the value of, and need for, nonprofits to have a strategic plan, the process and the plans themselves are, frankly, usually boring. Over the years of leading The Nonprofit Center, we’ve experimented with different approaches to strategic planning, always in search of alternative means for helping our clients with their own strategic planning. Of all of the different approaches we tried, the one I enjoyed the most (and probably the one others enjoyed the least) was planning with BHAGs—those big, Read more
What Employees Want
When I first saw the headline—93% of those employed at nonprofits are engaged in their work (and this was touted as being three times the national average)—I wasn’t surprised. Nevertheless, I went to the original source to read the entire Work for Good report.
In actuality, only 55% of nonprofit employees feel highly engaged, while 38% feel only “somewhat engaged.” And while, yes, the statement that 93% of nonprofit employees are engaged at work is not untrue, it is misleading and glosses over an important distinction: 41% Read more
