When a new employee asks for help handling the office gossip, Dr. Conflict advises first against upping the conflict by putting said gossip on the defensive, and second to check out the office culture before leaping into the fray. Perhaps surprising to some, he also reminds the frustrated employee that while one should not pay attention to every detail of what goes on in the workplace, it is never a good idea to stay disconnected, either, as “today’s gossip may be tomorrow’s fact.”
Building a Mission-Delivery Engine: Moving Your Website beyond the Web
AN NPQ CLASSIC:
If your brand substantively lies in the intersection between your nonprofit and its publics, your website is a critical communicator. But if it is a one-way kind of experience, the dynamism that should be there is lost.
“I Thought We Were Friends!” Can Nonprofits Terminate Employees for ?Their Social Media Posts?
The intersection between social media and labor and employment law is an uncharted road that the legal system has only recently started navigating. This article provides a guide to the legal principles on which recent decisions have been made, but also makes the point that this area of law is still very much in development. ?A must-read for executive and HR directors.
Cautionary Tales . . . Nonprofit Style
Why do so many of us insist upon learning from our own mistakes rather than those of other poor souls? Here we give you one more chance. Take heed of these tales of nonprofit organizations—large and small—that wander down the wrong path and embarrass themselves.
Welcome to 2012 and Our New World
This past year marked the beginning of Occupy Wall Street, which is emblematic of a rising tide of citizen action unconnected to formal institutions. Disturbing to some and exciting to others, the ability of people to self-organize—and their evident preference for it—is the overriding meaning we take from this past year into the next. What does it mean for institutions even in this sector. Do we need to change, too?
The Nonprofit Ethicist | Fall/Winter 2011
According to our trusty Nonprofit Ethicist, “when it comes to ethics, if it looks bad, it is bad.” Does it look okay for the director of a social services organization to raise funds for other organizations through a side business? How about if a board chair puts himself in the running for the executive director position but doesn’t step down as chair? It looks, in the Ethicist’s words—“Bad. Bad. Bad.”
Welcome | Winter/Fall 2011
We are at a point where we must basically choose a belief system about how promising and sustainable change occurs. Is such change designed and implemented by the few for the many, or is it more a collectively held project with a set of unifying principles and intentions but many and diverse implementers?
The Voice from Outside: Stakeholder Resistance in Nonprofit Organizations
There have been a number of instances recently where various groupings of stakeholders—including donors, members, staff, and constituents—have staged a revolt against a decision made by nonprofit leadership. Although social media may have aided the revolts, we think they are emerging from a changing attitude toward institutions.
“Monarch Butterfly Colony in Flight” © Frans Lanting/Corbis)
Top Execs at Tax Exempt Business Trade Associations Paid Very, Very Handsomely
Seven-figure compensation packages for chief executives are not uncommon among the tax-exempt trade associations representing business and industry interests. The $11.6 million paid to the head of PhRMA, the trade association for the drug companies, is nothing to sniff at.
Public Citizen Objects to Selling Naming Rights to Public Transport
A consumer protection organization expresses its serious concerns about selling off naming rights to public installations. To what extent is the whole country, democracy and all, being “occupied” by corporate interests?
When Unmentionables Become Undiscussables in a Nonprofit, the Organization Is at Risk
As $1.2 billion disappeared from Jon Corzine’s MF Global or as Jerry Sandusky allegedly abused Second Mile kids at Penn State, why didn’t someone stand up, name the problem, and call for an organizational discussion of what was happening and what needed to be fixed? Because the culture of some organizations—starting with top leadership—is to sweep problems under the rug and ensure that they don’t get discussed, much less resolved.
Could the Information Age Make Democracy Less Functional?
New research on fish schools (yes—fish schools!) has intriguing implications for increasing civic engagement in an era where we’re all swamped with information.