Executive Issues

In the end, it’s not about creating a new goal; it’s about creating a better way to achieve that goal. Marketing innovation helps you keep your current constituents and helps you find new constituents faster and more efficiently. Aren’t those your goals already? So, why isn’t innovation a formal part of the plan? Ask yourself that … and then ask your executives.

In April 2009, global management and fundraising consultant Bernard Ross wrote a cover story, "Roll the Stone (of Mediocrity) Away," that perfectly illuminates Engage's focus on that magic mixture of creativity, innovation and fearlessness that is necessary to realize growth for any nonprofit.

This week I was in Austin, TX for SXSW Interactive Festival where I presented or facilitated at several social good sessions or events.

There are alternatives to leaving our organizations vulnerable to lurching from one leader to another. We could fill the organization with leaders (with and without positional power) who are effective, knowledgeable, and aligned around the organization’s mission and strategy. What are the stakes — the risks — involved with not doing so?

Pamela Grow invites nonprofit consultant Heidi Massey to talk about the sometimes contentious relationship between fundraisers and program professionals: Although I am not a fundraiser, I suspect that there are many who have also shared knowing glances with other fundraisers while in conversation with a nonprofit program professional. They, too, are convinced that what they are doing is the most important work of the organization because without them, the organization cannot survive. Realistically though, organizations only thrive when both the program and fundraising professionals are skillfully executing their responsibilities.

Nonprofits have experienced a dramatically changed climate in the last decade — yet, unfortunately, most nonprofits have not changed themselves.

In Part One I discussed how training and professional development, along with a comprehensive development plan that has buy-in from key stakeholders, can help alleviate some of the challenges facing the nonprofit community. In Part Two, I tackle the all important culture of philanthropy nonprofits must adopt to be successful fundraising organizations.

If there is a firewall between leadership, program staff, the mission, the vision and the development office, the donor experience will be very shallow.

A recent industry study in 2011 found that "too much" was only a problem if the messaging wasn't relevant. Hence, the questions we should be asking ourselves are what our donors expect, how they feel and what we're doing to drive a great communication experience with our brands.

The question of nonprofit sustainability came into greater focus last week, after I had lunch with Professor Adlai Wertman from the USC/Marshall School of Business, founding director of Marshall’s Society and Business Lab and founder of nonprofit Chrysalis. Wertman has pushed wide open a national discussion of applying entrepreneurship and business principles to alleviate not only poverty, but many other social ills as well.

Wertman’s spirit of social sector entrepreneurship should be having an impact upon almost every discussion in the nonprofit sector — including fundraising.

In the June 2009 cover story, "Safety Line," former FS Associate Editor Abny Santicola explained how for-profit ventures help nonprofits shore up the funding they need to maintain and expand their programs — even in stormy economic times.