Building Smart Nonprofits


Book Description

Best practices for nonprofits for long-term success in a rapidly changing world. Building Smart Nonprofits: A Roadmap for Mission Success is a handbook of best practices nonprofits can use to improve sustainability - a book of knowledge and know-how distilled from interviews with over 60 industry leaders who are in the nonprofit trenches every day—as executives, leaders, board members, funders, publishers, and service providers. David J. O’Brien and Matthew D. Craig provide real-life examples of nonprofits deploying best practices and emerging industry trends – such as the rise of socially conscious investing – to position their organizations for the long term. Topics include, among others, funding models, impact investing, compensation, strategic restructuring, leadership, full-cost grantmaking, program evaluation, storytelling, and financing. Readers learn how to best position their non-profit organization for a sustainable and long-term future.




The Smart Nonprofit


Book Description

A pragmatic framework for nonprofit digital transformation that embraces the human-centered nature of your organization The Smart Nonprofit turns the page on an era of frantic busyness and scarcity mindsets to one in which nonprofit organizations have the time to think and plan — and even dream. The Smart Nonprofit offers a roadmap for the once-in-a-generation opportunity to remake work and accelerate positive social change. It comes from understanding how to use smart tech strategically, ethically and well. Smart tech does rote tasks like filling out expense reports and identifying prospective donors. However, it is also beginning to do very human things like screening applicants for jobs and social services, while paying forward historic biases. Beth Kanter and Allison Fine elegantly outline the ways smart nonprofits must stay human-centered and root out embedded bias in order to success at the compassionate and creative work that only humans can and should do.




Brandraising


Book Description

In the current economic climate, nonprofits need to focus on ways to stand out from the crowd, win charitable dollars, and survive the downturn. Effective, mission-focused communications can help organizations build strong identities, heightened reputations, and increased fundraising capability. Brandraising outlines a mission-driven approach to communications and marketing, specifically designed to boost fundraising efforts. This book provides tools and guidance for nonprofits seeking to transform their communications and marketing through smart positioning, branding, campaigns, and materials that leverage solid strategy and great creative, with a unique focus on the intersection of communications and fundraising.




Joan Garry's Guide to Nonprofit Leadership


Book Description

Nonprofit leadership is messy Nonprofits leaders are optimistic by nature. They believe with time, energy, smarts, strategy and sheer will, they can change the world. But as staff or board leader, you know nonprofits present unique challenges. Too many cooks, not enough money, an abundance of passion. It’s enough to make you feel overwhelmed and alone. The people you help need you to be successful. But there are so many obstacles: a micromanaging board that doesn’t understand its true role; insufficient fundraising and donors who make unreasonable demands; unclear and inconsistent messaging and marketing; a leader who’s a star in her sector but a difficult boss… And yet, many nonprofits do thrive. Joan Garry’s Guide to Nonprofit Leadership will show you how to do just that. Funny, honest, intensely actionable, and based on her decades of experience, this is the book Joan Garry wishes she had when she led GLAAD out of a financial crisis in 1997. Joan will teach you how to: Build a powerhouse board Create an impressive and sustainable fundraising program Become seen as a ‘workplace of choice’ Be a compelling public face of your nonprofit This book will renew your passion for your mission and organization, and help you make a bigger difference in the world.




Engine of Impact


Book Description

We are entering a new era—an era of impact. The largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history will soon be under way, bringing with it the potential for huge increases in philanthropic funding. Engine of Impact shows how nonprofits can apply the principles of strategic leadership to attract greater financial support and leverage that funding to maximum effect. As Good to Great author Jim Collins writes in his foreword, this book offers "a detailed roadmap of disciplined thought and action for turning a good nonprofit into one that can achieve great impact at scale." William F. Meehan III and Kim Starkey Jonker identify seven essential components of strategic leadership that set high-achieving organizations apart from the rest of the nonprofit sector. Together, these components form an "engine of impact"—a system that organizations must build, tune, and fuel if they hope to make a real difference in the world. Drawing on decades of teaching, advising, grantmaking, and research, Meehan and Jonker provide an actionable guide that executives, staff, board members, and donors can use to jumpstart their own performance and to achieve extraordinary results for their organization. Along with setting forth best practices using real-world examples, the authors outline common management challenges faced by nonprofits, showing how these challenges differ from those faced by for-profit businesses in important and often-overlooked ways. By offering crucial insights on the fundamentals of nonprofit management, this book will help leaders equip their organizations to fire on all cylinders and unleash the full potential of the nonprofit sector. Visit www.engineofimpact.org for additional information.




Smart Communities


Book Description

The new edition of the acclaimed guide to strategic decision-making in community planning, development, and collaboration Based on the results of more than a decade of research by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, Smart Communities provides directions for strategic decision-making and outlines the key strategies used by thousands of leaders who have worked to create successful communities. Outlining seven "leverage points" for decision-making used by thousands of leaders who have worked to create successful communities, this new Second Edition offers leaders from both the public and private sectors the tools they need to build a civic infrastructure and create a better future for all the community's citizens. Second Edition has been thoroughly updated with current knowledge and research Covers new developments from current design thinking and strategy literature to innovation and invention in communities Advises on how to create community readiness that will help avert problems before they begin All case vignettes have been revised to include more detailed information about the process and application of the seven leverage points Examples from communities around the country illustrate how these change agents' well-structured decision-making processes can be traced to their effective use of the seven key leverage points Smart Communities offers hope to those who are striving to improve their communities and addresses vital issues such as poverty, race relations, and children's health and welfare.




Give Smart


Book Description

A decade ago, Thomas J. Tierney left Bain & Company to cofound The Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit focused on helping donors and nonprofit leaders to develop and execute strategies to accelerate social change. In Give Smart, Tierney pools his hands-on knowledge with Duke professor Joel L. Fleishman's expertise to create a much-needed primer for philanthropists and the nonprofit organizations they support. Drawing from personal experiences, research spanning twentieth- and twenty-first-century philanthropy, contemporary interviews, and Bridgespan's extensive field work, Give Smart presents the definitive guide to engaged philanthropy.




The Future of Nonprofits


Book Description

Ever heard of an internal entrepreneur? You might know the type. They’re kind of employee who pushes mercilessly towards the trends of the future. Often looked at as a little bit outside the mainstream, more often than not the decisions this internal entrepreneur makes on behalf of an organization pay off in spades. So what makes an internal entrepreneur? How can you, as a nonprofit, create a culture that rewards futuring, internal entrepreneurs and innovation and doesn’t shut it down? The book “The Future of Nonprofits: Thrive and Innovate in the Digital Age” helps organizations do those very things. Better predicting future trends helps to reshape culture, creating the kind of environment ripe for positive growth in this fast changing world we work in today. Designed for nonprofit employees on all levels, the book will become a go to handbook for those interested in adapting in the modern world, not looking to be left behind. The Future of Nonprofits helps organizations capitalize on internal innovation. Innovative nonprofits are able to better predict future trends to remake and reshape their culture, structure, and staff to be a more nimble and lean. By applying the strategies laid out in this book, nonprofit professionals of all levels can prepare their organizations to take advantage of future trends and develop innovative “internal entrepreneurs” that will grow revenue and drive their mission. Provides nonprofits with a comprehensive playbook on how to create a new, more flexible, innovative organization Provides nonprofits a look at the future of fundraising and communications trends into 2016 Case studies highlight successes and failures Highlights the power and strength of Social Media Hightlights how to hire, train, manage and inspire “internal entrepreneurial” employees Features actionable advice on creating an organization that is primed to grow and thrive in the immediate and long-term future This game-changing book reveals how every nonprofit can put technology, innovation and future trends to work to reach their mission and grow revenue.




Smart Communities


Book Description

Based on the results of more than a decade of research by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, Smart Communities provides directions for strategic decision-making and outlines the key strategies used by thousands of leaders who have worked to create successful communities. Smart Communities offers leaders from both the public and private sectors the tools they need to create a better future for all the community's citizens. Using illustrative examples from communities around the country, Smart Communities shows how these change agents' well-structured decision-making processes can be traced to their effective use of seven key leverage points: Investing right the first time Working together Building on community strengths Practicing democracy Preserving the past Growing leaders Inventing a brighter future




Managing Arts Organizations


Book Description

Things have changed, to say the least. The arts field is resizing, recombining, rethinking. Gone are the days of long term subscribers and reliable audiences. Arts organizations must become more flexible, adaptive, and nimble to survive and thrive in today’s world. Arts managers must engage, adapt, and innovate. Great management invites creativity. Vibrant artistry welcomes strong management. Managing Arts Organizations can help. In Managing Arts Organizations, David Andrew Snider provides a playbook for navigating arts management in this new era and seeks to inspire a new generation of arts managers. Each chapter is focused on a specific topic, with principles, stories, exercises, advice, and best practices related to that topic. The appendix includes eight case studies, each illuminating issues in arts management via a real world scenario or organization. These narratives will enhance the reader’s understanding of topics including financial management, marketing, programming, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts, and accessibility across multiple disciplines. An instructor’s manual is available for professors who adopt the book as a required textbook.