Why are you here?
Most folks who chose to have careers in the nonprofit sector do so because they want to “make the world a better place.” That definition of “better” is almost always based on social justice values. Thus, these same people are surprised—and, honestly, quite often angry—when they discover that organizations that believe in things contrary to their definition of “better” are also nonprofits. After all, what makes a nonprofit a nonprofit is that it is working on behalf of some portion of the public good. And Read more
The Future of Nonprofits
With the influx of alternative models, from B corporations, L3Cs, social ventures and others social enterprises (for profit organizations that address social missions), how long into the future will there still be a need for nonprofits?
Having grappled with this question for quite some time, I still come up short. I believe we need nonprofits because of the many positive differences they bring compared to for-profits, well beyond the difference of each mission; but I’ve not had good enough hard data to really know. In my Read more
A Great Place to Work
We don’t often get the opportunity to look at our nonprofit and think, “We have something in common with the White House!” So, exactly what do the White House and nonprofits have in common? Turnover.
HR professionals all agree that turnover is costly. According to the Center for American Progress, for jobs that pay less than $50,000 a year—sadly, way too many jobs in the nonprofit sector, and 75% of the American workforce—it costs 20% of a position’s annual salary to fill those vacancies. For positions Read more
Is Bigger Always Better? Money vs. Mission
Whenever I talk about strategic planning, I make sure to very quickly help folks understand one important thing: strategic planning isn’t necessarily about planning for growth, but is always about planning for organizational evolution, which may involve growth, or shrinkage, or moving towards perfection and say nothing about size, or….
This is confusing because most people see growth as the goal. In this country, bigger is always seen as better and nonprofits have fallen into the trap of thinking they are failing if they consciously choose Read more
Bursting the Bubble
I’ve just finished teaching a class on trends in the nonprofit sector. I have found that most students get so charged by this class as they come to understand the importance of being mindful of the world around them—not just the world around them in their slice of the sector, but the larger world of the whole sector and beyond. These current and future leaders realize that we don’t monitor trends so that we can jump on each and every bandwagon; we do so to Read more
Mind the Gaps
Earlier this week, the only male student in the class I’m teaching this summer did a presentation on the gender wage gap in the nonprofit sector. And though, according to the Pew Research Center, millennials seem to be kicking it, such that in 2012, the gender wage gap in newly hired millennials was only 93%, it appears that this was but a temporary kick in the rear.
Sadly, indications are that the gap begins to return to the larger disparity of the whole (84%) as millennials Read more
Donating to make a splash
Like American Express’ support of the little guy with its “Small Business Saturday” campaign on the Saturday after Black Friday, I want to a day that promotes supporting small nonprofits. While it lacks alliteration, it makes an important point, and failing to do so is harmful to our community all across the country.
My concern for the disappearance of the small(er), community-based nonprofit has been growing over the years. Are they ready to be put on the endangered species list? Not yet, but there is certainly Read more
Measuring up to the data
I was pretty excited when I saw the title of the recently released joint BDO and The NonProfit Times report, “Nonprofit Standards, A Benchmarking Survey.” While I was a little surprised that these two organizations would have been the ones to define a set of nonprofit standards, I quickly understood why, and the disappointment just rained down. Turns out this is a study of the exceptions, not the rule. So, why am I even wasting my words on this? Because it says so much about Read more
Happy Millennials = Happy Workplace
Malcolm Harris, a millennial author of an upcoming book on millennials, declares in a recent Washington Post op-ed, that it should come as no surprise that millennials are leakers like no other previous generation. While some folks question Harris’ stability (particularly since the tweets he posted after yesterday’s shooting at the Republican baseball team’s practice, and then deleted, though many of his other tweets and writings are deserving of raised eyebrows and questions of civility), and others refer to him as communist, the argument he Read more
