Posts Tagged ‘nonprofit’

Can you imagine trying to start a new non-profit during a Recession?
In recent months, I have been fortunate to be engaged by a number of new nonprofits who have just received their 501(C) 3 certification and want to get their new creation off to a good start.
In these difficult financial times, when many established nonprofits [...]

Why do we need volunteers in a nonprofit?
The whole nonprofit field was built on volunteerism. Almost every nonprofit began with a group of volunteers sitting around a table trying to find ways to solve a community problem. As our agencies have grown and become more complicated, we needed to hire staff, and we have professionalized [...]

HOW TO UTILIZE A CONSENT AGENDA

In the last blog I introduced the concept of a Consent Agenda. This blog will deal with how to utilize it and how to introduce the idea to the board.
How does it work?
1. Committee chairs are told they have to write reports to the board and have them [...]

IMPROVING A BOARD MEETING WITH A CONSENT AGENDA
Why are board meetings so long and often so boring? Maybe it’s because we subject people to sit and listened to long reports, one after another, month after month. We do this because we believe that as board members they have to know what’s going on at [...]

Is it really impossible to raise more money for an organization during a Recession? I don’t think so.

While there is no doubt that these are difficult times to engage in fundraising, my experience shows that many organizations do such an inadequate job in the first place, that refocusing their efforts will result [...]

Friends and Colleagues, this stuff I’ve been writing about really works!
Last week at a Board meeting, we saw the impact of the implementation of good board practices when a long time board member said, “We’ve come a long way, baby!” at the end of the meeting. Just a year ago this was a struggling [...]

Is your Board Chair ready to lead the Board?
Every year, thousands of well-meaning and committed volunteers assume the reigns as the Chairman of a Board of Directors. Unfortunately, the great majority of these individuals do not have a clue as to what to do. Most of us have done a very poor job of [...]

Let’s spend a little time talking about how the Board gets it’s work done. I have written in past blogs about Boards and that Board meetings should be all about education and inspiration, strategic thinking and making policy decisions. So where does the work get done if not at the Board meetings? In committees, task [...]

While we are going through these difficult times, we need to do a critical self-analysis of our human resources. The days of easy foundation money is gone, at least for a while. We must rely more and more on the generosity of individuals. Are you kidding-with so many people out of work and investment [...]

So many times I hear staff and board members complaining that they can’t get volunteers to do what they promised to do.
 I believe there are several reasons why we are often disappointed when commitments made are not commitments kept.  Three critical factors can keep volunteers motivated and assure that decisions that are made are carried [...]