Many nonprofits have their priorities dead wrong where volunteers are concerned. This article provides a guide of sorts to rethink your own practices, which may be wasting one of your most important capital, intellectual, and connectivity resources.
Eliminating Random Acts of Kindness by 2010
The National Bureau of Evaluation comes of age courtesy of brave advocates bucking the trend of fluff evaluations.
Just Another Emperor: the Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism
NPQ Spr 08 | The Nonprofit Quarterly has found Edwards’s argument compelling and worth examination. We invite you to download the full document here [PDF] and bring your comments to the NPQ Forum to do as the author urges by engaging in dialogue “between philanthrocapitalists and their critics, on condition that they shed the mock civility that turns honest conversation into ‘jello.’ Deep-rooted differences about capitalism and social change are unlikely to go away, so let’s have more honesty and dissent before consensus, so that it might actually be meaningful when it arrives.
Of Poetry and Mission Statements
e-Newsletter | Transforming your mission into Haiku can illuminate your organization's work in a very different way and so we encourage you to try it either alone or in a group.
Many of you responded to our challenge and sent in your mission haikus. Here are a few of the best.
It’s the [Nonprofit] Economy, Stupid.
Cohen Report | We all too often overlook the role that nonprofits play in the economy, but recent events should have brought this role into clear focus. With this issue, we remind you and ourselves about the sector in the larger economy. Please also view the Short Takes on the charitable generosity of Countrywide Mortgage, the William J. Clinton Foundation, and more.
Cohen Report Short Takes 02/27/08
Touring the Countrywide: A recent CR examined the charitable generosity of the Countrywide mortgage empire, whose subprime depredations contributed mightily to the nation’s current national economic turbulence, noting how its philanthropic grantmaking paled in generosity compared to the 9-figure payoff it gave to its departing CEO, Angelo Mozilo. CR was hardly alone in questioning Mozilo’s
Serving the People by Serving the Wealthy?
UT Southwestern provided a concierge-like preferential treatment for the rich and celebrities. Meanwhile, this hospital’s total of “bad debt charges” and “charity charges” amounted to only 4.6 percent of gross patient revenue.
Shocking Endowments
Like Captain Renault’s encounter with gambling at Rick’s American Café, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here,” a flabbergasted U.S. Congress has revealed to the American public that nonprofit universities and hospitals sit on tax exempt endowments amounting to billions of dollars. Not a heck of a lot actually gets
Nonprofits Scarce in Stimulus Planning
There’s nothing wrong with nonprofits’ capitalizing on any and every provision that they can. But there’s a bigger role for the nonprofit sector in this economy, bigger than advocating for candidates’ platitudes or a nonprofit percentage in federal human service programs.
Why Does the Board Act That Way?
I long ago got disaffected from those that depend upon bland prescriptive advice about boards because it does not have much to do with what really needs to happen to make a board relevant and a value-add to the organization. But I am always interested in the facts about boards. What really makes them act in one way or another?
National Nonprofit Infrastructure Organizations
The following organization descriptions and map provide more specific information for and an illustration of the national nonprofit infrastructure—as it currently stands.
Case Story: How Infrastructure Created Strength in One Organization
The success story of a struggling AIDS organization, its executive director, and the intermediary that helped turn things around.