Thoughts on Nonprofit Leadership

Reputation Counts in Getting the Grant Funding building community support grant writing marketing and communications

What is your nonprofit’s reputation? Is it intact? What about your leadership? What is your executive director’s reputation? What about you as the grant liaison? What do others think about you personally? And what in the world does reputation have to do with grant funding?

Your...

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To Get the Grant Funding, Make Sure You Follow All the Rules grant writing

If you want your grant proposal to rank at the top of the pile, or in some cases even be read, you must follow all the rules. Some grant presentation rules are obvious because they are given to you. Some rules not so obvious because they are not written anywhere. However, your proposal will be...

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The Value in Involving Your Team in the Hiring Process for executive directors professional development relationship building

By Katherine Spinney, ACC, MT, MSW

Since I was nine, I have had some type of paid work. From newspaper delivery to babysitting to nonprofit executive-ing, I have had more jobs than most people have in a lifetime - which means I have gone through countless different hiring processes along the way....

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How to Rebuild Public Trust Amidst the Negative Organizational Effects of COVID-19 for executive directors marketing and communications

Every nonprofit I know has suffered greatly under COVID-19. As revenues declined and expenses went up, many nonprofits have had to reduce services. There may be people who were getting services who aren’t now. Or people aren’t receiving the same level of services as they did before....

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How to Set Good Revenue Goals Amidst COVD-19 development planning financial management for executive directors

In some nonprofits, the fundraising goal is determined by a budget deficit. Expenses are set first, then committed revenues are put in. The deficit is the fundraising goal for the year. For other nonprofits, the annual fundraising goal is last year’s budget increased by whatever percentage....

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How to Rebuild Your Nonprofit’s Finances During COVID-19 financial management for executive directors

We’ve all been hit hard by COVID. Every nonprofit I know has experienced some kind of negative financial impact because of the pandemic. Expenses went up as cleaning guidelines got stricter. Your nonprofit may have had to invest heavily in personal protection equipment. Revenues are down as...

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How to Regain Staff and Board Support Still Reeling from the Effects of COVID-19 board relations for executive directors relationship building

Morale has waned as staff and board struggle to cope. Staff may feel insecure in their jobs, Board members may fear organizational nonexistence. Trust has eroded amidst layoff’s and downsizing. Staff are angry. Board members feel helpless. Emotions are high. Productivity is down. Customer...

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The Last Ten Days of 2020: If you Haven’t Yet, Start Now to Improve Your Annual Fundraising Results development planning fundraising

It’s December 22, 2020. It’s probably slow at your office, with many of your co-workers or employees off for the holidays. I always liked being in the office during this time. I liked the fact that I had more time than usual to concentrate on improving my year-end fundraising results...

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Optimizing Your Fundraising Resources evaluation financial management

In Measuring Overall Fundraising Performance we talked about the difference between gross and net income and how net income is a better indicator of fundraising success than gross income. We also discussed influencing the relationship between the amount of donations and number of donors. In Data...

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