Tips for new initiatives

Nonprofit staffs and boards are mission-driven. It can be tempting, when encountering a compelling issue related to your cause, to take on a...

Nine Essentials for Facility Planning

If you need to build a new facility, or renovate an existing one, early preparation can make the difference between glorious success and dis...

Tools for Planning

Nonprofits can draw from a broad array of tools to help them connect the qualitative aspirations of their mission and goals to the measurabl...

Third Annual What's Your Mission? Competition

The job of a mission statement is to articulate the essence of why the organization exists. If you don’t articulate it, then it’s very likel...

Nonprofit Webinars Season 12

With the passing of Labor Day 2012 we'll be ready to launch the fall season of our free weekly professional development webinars for sta...

Succession

Critical Issues #14: Managing Change will be out tomorrow. One important moment of change in a nonprofit is the transition of an organizati...

Action!

Currently I am advising a client on how to do a strategic plan internally, with only the most minimal involvement from me, the external cons...

More Mission Statement Makeovers

Winding up the year, this is the last of three posts on the Mission Statement Makeover competition. Despite the caveat in the first post abo...

Second Annual What's Your Mission? Competition

A clear, concise, compelling, and memorable mission statement is the basis of a strong message, focused strategy, energized stakeholders and...

Capital Punishment

An article in today's New York Times tells of the woes of the American Folk Art Museum . Borrowed $32,000,000 to build a signature buil...

Mind your RFPs & Qs, Part 3: Process

The most important part of the RFP process is the work that goes into preparing to write the RFP. That’s when you articulate your needs, put...

Mind your RFPs & Qs, Part 2: Structure & Content

Structure The starting point for a good RFP can be a sample of one done for similar kinds of work, with emphasis on “starting point” and “si...

Arguments Against Planning

I sat in on a strategy meeting recently for an organization with ten years of impressive accomplishments and a founder looking toward retire...

More on Metrics

In between writing an article on metrics ( Critical Issues #8: The Measure of Success ) and preparing for an upcoming webinar on the same t...

Fall Schedule of Free Wednesday Webinars from NonprofitWebinars

Two free professional development webinars for nonprofit trustees and staff every Wednesday at 1:00 and 2:30 (Eastern time). The fall webin...

Two stories about mission statements

Story 1. Where do the other words go? Recently, at a meeting with the senior staff of a nonprofit, to discuss strategy and marketing, I ment...

Strategic Plan vs. Marketing Plan

The other day I was speaking with a prospective client about the need for a strategic plan and a marketing plan. They characterized the stra...

Mind your RFPs & Qs, Part 1: Purpose

A Request for Proposals (RFP) can be a useful tool for hiring service providers. As someone who has written RFPs and RFQs (Request for Quali...

If it ain’t broke…

I first encountered the term “no brainer” as a corporate manager. Since I had arrived in the corporate world from academia, I was not very g...

Wednesday Webinars for Nonprofits: Summer 2010

The summer schedule of Wednesday Webinars is just about complete. The first half of the year saw a great start to the program, with over 300...