Executive Issues

As a former finance chief of four public companies, including mortgage giant Fannie Mae, David Johnson knows about investments. “When I think about investment, I immediately think about hurdle rates, return on investment and return on equity,” he said. At International Rescue Committee, the refugee-aid charity that Johnson joined last March, the term investments refers…

Many nonprofit executives are lucky if they can spend 10 percent of their work year on vacation. This 10 percent could easily affect the 90 percent left on the job. Be sure to take your vacation and try to take it the right way. How? Focus on body, mind and spirit...

New management trends have cropped up recently in the social impact sector that are changing the way nonprofits approach their work. Purposeful goal-setting, sustainability and a new emphasis on technology (for both marketing and productivity) are just a few of the principles behind these new trends. Here, several nonprofit executives and members of Forbes Nonprofit Council explain six…

Nonprofits are messy. It’s true even for the best nonprofit organizations out there. Not enough money. Too many cooks. An abundance of passion. Often on this blog I write about what nonprofits are doing wrong and how to fix it. After all, “nonprofits are messy” is more than just my tagline—it’s my mantra. And my…

We are working with a client who is undergoing a CEO transition. Over the past two years, this organization had invested in a master planning process and also an extensive strategic planning process. When asked if it should pause while searching for a new CEO, our response was an emphatic "No!"...

It never ceases to amaze me how often nonprofit leaders give away their expertise and their time—for free. Here’s the most recent example I’ve encountered: A leader of an education nonprofit, let’s call her "Amy," was approached by a group of funders who wanted to start a similar program in a different city. They already…

I got to spend time in Omaha this week, one of America’s great philanthropic cities, and was happily reminded of the force for good that is a high-functioning fundraising department. Show me a focused group of professionals devoted to donor relationships and revenue targets, and I can anticipate world-class results. We have had a fond…

Who won last night's debate? Many say Hillary Clinton. Some say Donald Trump. There's no debate, though, that the nonprofit sector largely supports Clinton. A new study from NAPCO Media Research surveyed executives across four industries to determine where each sector's political loyalties lie. There were some surprises...

Last week, I wrote about the importance of firing people faster. Some employees are not effective, and sometimes they’re downright toxic, and we need to let them go. However, often it’s not the employee who is incompetent or toxic, but his or her supervisors. So, to bring balance, this week I am writing about horrible…

Anyone reading this hoping for an attack on the fact that there are too many nonprofits, should stop reading now. The primary problem we have in the sector is not that replication occurs because too many nonprofits exist. It is much more about having a nonprofit economy that rewards individual performance instead of collective impact,…