Posts Tagged ‘journal’

I’ve often wondered why live comedy-shows begin with someone coming out and kibitzing with the audience before they go live. Shouldn’t they be backstage getting ready? Now I get it! They do this so when the show begins, the audience has already been energized and laughing so the show’s jokes draw immediate response. I realize [...]

Are you interested in building future board members who understand your agency and know how to be nonprofit leaders? I believe that this is vital to the continued success of any nonprofit. Here’s a interesting approach to developing these young leaders. One of my current clients has created a Leadership Board. This is a group [...]

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where one issue absorbs the entire meeting and the other issues get pushed to the side? The Executive and I were debriefing after the last Board meeting. The main item on the agenda was a consultant’s presentation on the pro’s and con’s of the unionization of the [...]

How do agencies determine the level of the Board members gifts? An article in this morning’s New York Times indicated that the largest cultural institutions in that city require that Trustees contribute from $250,000 to $10 million to sit on the Board. Read the article Read the article here. In Los Angeles the amounts aren’t [...]

My client was seeking to add five new Board members and had a list of twice that number. The discussion began with the personal qualities and financial resources of each candidate. I then asked, “What type of new resources does your Strategic Plan require?” When they relooked at their strategic initiatives that they will be [...]

When a client agreed several months ago that they wanted to build a power Board of twenty-five, it seemed like this would take years. It turned out to not be so difficult. In September, this agency “could hold their board meetings in a telephone booth”, and now there will be 17 members at our meeting [...]

WHY DO WE MAKE FUND RAISING SO PAINFUL? How do you enlist of group of people to help with their agency’s fundraising when their only experience in raising money has been uncomfortable or unpleasant? That was the task I faced in my first meeting with my new client, which provides scholarships for needy kids to [...]

I have been receiving a great deal of positive comments about my blogs, which I try to write 3-4 times a month. These are usually small pieces of a philosophy of my best practices for nonprofits and deal with subjects like board governance, fund raising, staff development, and strategic planning. I have a long-term outline [...]