Executive Issues

The African proverb speaks to the need for nonprofit managers to be aware of how their actions affect those they manage.

Having interacted with all types of organizations over the years as donor, employee and consultant, I can say that many nonprofits encounter similar challenges to strategic planning, fundraising and board leadership. While it’s comforting to know that you’re not alone, you’re still left with the ultimate dilemma of how to address these issues. 

While universal “cost-to-raise-a-dollar” metrics can be debated, one thing that cannot be debated is how funds are used by nonprofits to benefit the communities they serve. What are the actual outcomes? Did the nonprofit improve lives through a variety of verifiable factors?

Redefining What Leadership Means to Today's Nonprofit

If you inspire, trust and lead your staff well, you can and will retain fundraising staff. If our missions deserve increased philanthropy, the teams we’re asking to attract that philanthropy deserve attentive and effective leadership.

Nonprofit leadership has to come into focus. We now live in an age where artificial intelligence is changing the very nature of our work. Nonprofits have to come to terms with substantial changes.

Look around you today: It’s becoming increasingly more common to see women hold leadership roles at nonprofit organizations, proving that women play a central role and are becoming more dominant in today’s nonprofit landscape.

When evaluating a nonprofit organization’s financial and operational effectiveness, what should we consider? It is the age-old nonprofit conundrum: How do we show our nonprofit value on paper?

Nonprofit organizations are a big responsibility. And just because you might think you can make a difference, there are things to consider before starting.

Core values are an essential aspect of running a nonprofit organization, because they provide the information that the outside world needs to know about what you stand for in the community. Core values help inform people about how your organization behaves from within and outside of itself.