No one wants to experience a certain panicky sinking feeling sensation, followed closely by crystal-clear hindsight that they could have completely and easily avoided getting their organization into a terrible fix, or a damaged reputation, or a loss of funding. All nonprofits—whether foundation or charity—have conflicts of interest from time to time; all nonprofits should be able to recognize and …
I’ll give you the answer right up front: only board members can be on a board committee. “But wait!”, you may be thinking. “What about all the talent, wisdom, and leadership potential that’s not on our board?” Don’t worry – those great people can also be involved, via an advisory committee. If you have a board committee with non-board members …
Are you uncertain whether your foundation is benchmarking to its fullest advantage? Do you wonder if you should do more? Benchmarking can be a simple, straightforward process. Your foundation can benefit from it with minimal time and effort, and on any budget. Common types of benchmarking include: Best practices benchmarking involves looking at other foundations who do their work well, and that …
Facilitation is such a great opportunity to nurture honest communication among different personalities; to find both common and uncommon ground. As I was talking with one client about goals for an upcoming meeting of board members from different organizations, she happened to let drop that one participant was known to take over meetings. Apparently, at a recent City Council meeting, …
This afternoon, I had the pleasure of listening to presentations by David Renz and Ruth McCambridge at “Creative Chemistry: Strategies for Growing Your Board & Its Impact.” The workshop description read, in part: “From strategy to structure to succession to sustainability, nonprofit board leaders and executives across American (and even across the world) are exploring new ways to sustain and …
As you engage in your day-to-day work, you’re giving and receiving feedback all the time—about things that concern you, your values, and behaviors that you like—whether you mean to or not. Feedback comes through via unconscious facial expressions, comments during meetings, or your level of enthusiasm. Being intentional and strategic about feedback is a tremendous way to strengthen relationships, become …
You won’t find bullies on every board, but, when you do, they can be very disruptive—creating surprisingly high levels of stress for fellow board members and damaging the integrity, effectiveness, and impact of the board’s work. Be careful not to assume the other party to any difficult conversation is a bully. Some people engage in bullying behavior only in certain …
[Many thanks to Exponent Philanthropy for permission to reprint this blog post, which I wrote while on staff in June 2017. Although some details vary, such as for the types of policies used by nonprofits that are not private foundations, or the percent adopted over time, in my experience, the key messages apply to all sorts of nonprofit organizations.] I …
This month, I’ve noticed a passel of wonderful new data sources online. I’ve compiled a handful that I find particularly fascinating and new — and a couple that are tried-and-true: One that falls in the former category is the City Health Dashboard, which shares out data for fully 500 U.S. cities. There are 36 measures grouped into social & economic …
I was interviewing for the opportunity to work with a family foundation, when the Board President asked me, astutely, what an organizational assessment includes – as I see it. I was facing a board of nearly 15 individuals in a large conference room, with board members ranging from 30 years of age to 90. Within this age-diverse group, there must …
