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Boards as Teams, Part 1 - Nonprofit Boards Are Teams
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
What is a board if not a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable? That is the classic definition of teams proposed by Katzenbach and Smith in Wisdom of Teams. Similarly, William Dyer’s characteristics of effective teams could just as easily describe effective nonprofit boards.
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Contributed by:
Tim Lannan
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Ageism Cuts Both Ways
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
As a young professional in non-profit fundraising, how do you convince potential employers, coworkers, or funders that age does not equal ability? For the early part of my (admittedly short) career, I obsessed over my lack of experience, my status as “recent college graduate,” and my age. At the ripe old age of twenty-six, I now realize that none of these factors should shape the way others define me. More importantly, they must never be a part of my self-definition.
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Contributed by:
Emma Joseph
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Is Creation of a Governance Committee Now Considered a Best Practice in the U.S.? (Part 2 )
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
[Author’s note: This is Part 2 of a two-part article examining the creation of a governance committee. In Part 1 we looked below the surface of the queston of whether or not governance committees are now a best practice, to examine the reasons behind the clear trend toward their formation. In this Part 2, we look at how a governance committee, or at least the functions ordinarily performed by a governance committee, are implemented. Though focused on the topic of governance committees from the U.S. context (and particularly from the California legal context), it will be of interest to our colleagues in other countries as well.]
Setting aside the question of whether or not creation of a governance committee, per se, is a best practice, there is a clear trend toward, if not an outright consensus in, the necessity that governing boards exercise certain governance oversight responsibilities that have increasingly crystallized since 2003.
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Contributed by:
Stephen Nill
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Is Creation of a Governance Committee Now Considered a Best Practice in the U.S.? (Part 1 )
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
[Author’s note: The following two-part article, though focused on the topic of governance committees from the U.S. context, it will be of interest to our colleagues in other countries as well. This Part 1 goes below the surface of the question of whether or not governance committees are now a best practice, to examine the reasons behind the clear trend toward their formation.]
While it is tempting to try to draw conclusions as to what constitutes a “best practice” when it comes to the proposed formation of a governance committee, applying the “best practice” buzzwords tends to remove the question at hand from the realm of reasoned consideration. It implies that reasonable minds may not differ on the proposition....
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Contributed by:
Stephen Nill
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About Funding Environmental Sustainability for Your Agency
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Green Projects are Often the Smartest Projects
A wise woman once told me that “money must do more than one thing.” She was speaking from experience as a reviewer for state funding and was advising my agency on positioning for new funding. That maxim has served me well for twenty years, and it continues to apply to funding environmentally-sustainable buildings and practices.
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Contributed by:
Sarah Brophy
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Prospect Research — Where to start!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Whether you’re starting at a new agency as a grant writer or been with the same organization for years, finding new prospects and keeping track of them can be overwhelming. Obviously the type of prospect research you do depends on the type of agency you work at and the type of programs that need funding. However, the same general principles can be applied to no matter where you work.
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Contributed by:
Alyssa Hanada
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The Three C’s of Good Governance (+1)
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
To help nonprofit boards define their specific role and responsibilities in context of the nonprofit they serve, I have developed a simple framework for focusing discussion on board accountabilities rather than the functions and tasks it performs. This framework is organized around three key areas where nonprofit boards add value, which I call the Three C’s of Good Governance: catalyst, connector, and custodian.
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Contributed by:
Tim Lannan
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Professional Development – Invest in Yourself
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Often you are so busy investing your time and energy in your agency and writing grants for their needs that you are forgotten. Your agency needs you operating at 100%....and right now, they need you at 100% all the time. We all know what happens when we are operating at 90%. That’s the time when your proposals are denied funding because you forgot a signature or you missed the deadline because it was 5:00 p.m. EST not PST. Or the ultimate embarrassment occurs – you had another funder’s name in the narrative that you cut and pasted.
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Contributed by:
Becky Day-Swain
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Should You Share Your Grant Proposals?
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Recently, a colleague inquired as to the appropriateness of sharing complete copies of successfully-funded grant proposals with others via the Internet. The inquiring colleague was interested in what policies others in the grant field had developed for their institutions. ...I cautioned her that....
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Contributed by:
Rebecca Shawver
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Five Mid-Year Resolutions for Your Grant Development Department
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
As we approach mid-year, it is time to ask ourselves a question. Are we doing all we can to have a better fund raising year? The year 2011 might offer the same for nonprofits as 2010. Of course, it could offer more funding possibilities. Whatever the changes are in store for the funding community, to be as successful as you can be you will need a specific, measurable strategy that is divided into manageable pieces.
Let’s start now to look at five opportunities each month for the rest of the year to advance your development efforts and to achieve organizational goals this year!
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Contributed by:
Jeannette Archer-Simons
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Engaging the Board
Thursday, May 19, 2011
One of the challenges that nonprofit leaders and fund development professionals face is how to engage the board in meaningful and productive work on behalf of the organization. Engaging the board can be achieved in four basic steps....
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Contributed by:
Jeannette Archer-Simons
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The Case Statement
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
The case statement is the single most important document that appropriately states your organization’s purpose, methods, values, and budget. It makes your case for support.
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Contributed by:
Neva Coyle
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Collective Leadership and Shared Governance: A New Approach to Increasing the Impact of Foundation Investments
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
In 2009, the board of the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona (CFSA) began the process of rethinking the way the foundation granted its unrestricted funds. Two years later, the community foundation has changed its funding model. It has moved entirely away from its traditional model of funding small amounts to individual organizations. Its new model is focused instead on building and funding multi-organization teams that are working together on a system change goal. This is the story of the process.
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Contributed by:
Cassandra ONeill
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Congressional Investigation Needed Into U.S. Department of Education Trio/Talent Search Grant Competition
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
In my opinion, this 2011 U.S. Department of Education Trio/Talent Search grant competition was neither fair nor unbiased. It was fraught with inside pressure and political motives. The reviewers were simply pawns in the U.S. Department of Education’s game. And whatever awards will be made will most certainly be reflective of the Department’s plans – not the fair and equitable opinions of the reviewers that the public and applicants believe made unbiased and untainted scoring decisions. A Congressional investigation is needed.
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Contributed by:
Rebecca Shawver
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Too Many Grants!
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
When a retiring executive director looked at her organization's budget and its diverse funding streams, she was satisfied. But when she actually measured the time workflow and expense against the overall budget revenues, she gulped in horror. Most of her time was spent writing, securing, and renewing a total of almost forty grants a year....
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Contributed by:
Karen Joyce Williams
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