For a limited time, my article The Nonprofit Paradox recently published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review is available online for free regardless of subscription.
Why are nonprofit organizations so often plagued by the very ills they aim to cure? Read the article online, or download a PDF, and let us know what you think.
On June 30, Northern California Grantmakers and the Foundation Center, sponsored an engaging panel discussion in San Francisco, about Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector.
Each panelist highlighted different aspects of the five trends impacting the social sector and what their organizations are doing in response to, or in some cases, as part of the trends.
For example, Matt Halperin said the Omidyar Network is sector-agnostic when it comes to their investments, for them, sector-blurring has become sector indifference.
Dee Dee Nguyen of Marin Community Foundation talked about the changing demographics of California and the challenge of engaging younger donors in giving circles.
Peter Friess of the Tech Museum of Innovation showed a footage of kids being videotaped, so that the childrens’ explanations can be used in place of signage explaining the museum’s exhibits, to make the visitor experience more meaningful for other children.
It was a lively discussion with lots of people hanging around after for more. Special thanks to Judi Powell and Dion Ward of NCG and Janet Camarena of Foundation Center for helping make this event a success!
I recently had the honor of giving a keynote address, at the annual meeting of the Donors Forum, about our report Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector. It was especially meaningful for me to return to the Donors Forum, because they first invited me to speak to their members over ten years ago, about our monograph Beyond Collaboration, back when I founded La Piana Consulting in 1998.
As Valerie Lies, President and CEO of the Donors Forum, described in her powerful opening remarks to the 600 guests of last week’s event, Chicago is struggling with many of the same economic and political challenges as the rest of the country.
I described La Piana Consulting’s NonprofitNext research and the five key trends that are converging to reshape the social sector landscape.
Joining the discussion was Mae Hong, Director of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Nicole Robinson, Director of Kraft Foods Global Community Involvement division, and Ricardo Estrada, Chicago’s First Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Family and Support Services.
The panel itself represented the future, with young and diverse leaders, whose affiliations spanned a blurring of sectors across government, philanthropic, and corporate social action.
Where will you take nonprofits next? Join the conversation today!
Bill Coy, Mary Stelletello, and I are on our way to Honolulu for the capstone graduation event with our 7th class of PONO fellows. PONO is both a Hawaiian word meaning “righteousness” and an acronym: Promoting Outstanding Nonprofit Organizations. PONO is built on our firm’s Leadership Advanced program and provides a yearlong leadership development experience for up to 15 Hawaii nonprofit executive directors.
With our PONO partner, the Hawaii Community Foundation, this fall we will launch the Hawaii Emerging Leaders Program (HELP), which will adapt our proven leadership curriculum for non-CEO leaders in nonprofits in Hawaii. These are program directors, CFOs, development directors and other senior leaders who usually report to the executive director, and who may one day be executive directors themselves.
Looking towards the nonprofit sector’s next generation of emerging leaders, be sure to check out one of Rosetta Thurman’s latest blog posts, “11 Reasons Why New College Grads Should Pursue Nonprofit Careers” and Brent Copen’s recent post about the May 2010 HBR article “The Leaders We Need Now” at our NonprofitNext blog.
I returned recently to Stanford Law School to give a guest lecture on nonprofit strategy to a class on social entrepreneurship taught by Suzanne McKechnie Klar. Suzanne founded Build, an amazing organization that provides real-world entrepreneurial experience for at-risk youth. It was inspiring to meet a group of our most promising future lawyers and to learn how deeply they care about social justice. We had quite a lively discussion that reinforced the thoughtfulness of smart young people and the positive impact they are going to have on the world.
I just led a teleconference today, sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits, on the topic of the future of the nonprofit sector. I focused on our recent research initiative NonprofitNext and related report Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector. I invite everyone, CEN members and beyond, to join the conversation and visit the NonprofitNext blog.
Writing from the biennial gathering of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations Conference in Pittsburgh, I have to say there is a really upbeat attitude among the participants, mostly foundation staff and trustees. I ascribe this optimism to the Dow hitting 11,000, a height fondly remembered but not seen for a long time. As the market picks up, foundation assets rebuild from their 28% decline and things get much more positive in the foundation community. Which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong.
But on the other hand most nonprofits rely on sources other than foundations for the bulk of their support. Giving from individuals is still being pressed by high unemployment and uncertainty, some of which may also ease as the market rises. And the largest source of revenue for nonprofits is state and local government programs, and here we see no light at the end of the tunnel, only a precipice as the states try to balance their 2010-2011budgets.
So, as the foundation community regains some of its capacity to help nonprofits, let us not forget that the public sector funding in many cases is much more critical, day in day out, to the survival of most nonprofits, and it will not be rebounding any time soon.
As I waded through nearly a foot of water at the curb while exiting a cab at SFO, rain pouring down my collar, all I could think is “What possessed me to book a 4PM Sunday flight to Pittsburgh?” But I knew the answer. It was for a good cause, of course, the biennial meeting of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, where my colleague Heather Gowdy and I will be leading a session on our latest research initiative NonprofitNext.
GEO’s conference is my favorite gathering because it is a group of people who understand the importance of building strong, sound organizations, not just funding exciting new programs. Still, going out in this curiously wild April storm seemed a bit crazy. So I was all the more surprised when I was joined at the gate by roughly a dozen Bay Area foundation folks, all waiting for the same flight.
GEO is an important part of the nonprofit sector. I must be one of a very small number of people who have attended every one of its meetings, going back, if memory serves, to 1998. The first gathering of a few dozen people in Monterey has mushroomed into an international conference with several hundred foundation leaders and capacity builders.
Despite the dramatic loss of funding for organizational effectiveness issues over the past decade GEO has grown. It publishes important resources, including our Due Diligence Tool, and in addition to the biennial gathering, convenes smaller specialized meetings on many topics. GEO enriches the sector, even if getting to the conference requires traveling through rain, sleet, or snow, it’s always worth it.
Following up my recent Merging Wisely article in Stanford Social Innovation Review, I will be discussing the practical issues involved in merging nonprofit organizations at the next SSIR Live! webinar. From Nonprofit Partnerships to Mergers: How to Restructure for Success will take place Tuesday, April 6, 2010, from 11:00am – Noon PT. I plan to leave plenty of time for questions, so bring yours and join us. Register today!
The UK nonprofit sector is served by the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations or ACEVO. This group sponsors workshops, master classes, networking, and other resources for the UK’s nonprofit leaders.
Unlike American institutions such as Independent Sector or the various state nonprofit associations, members of ACEVO are chief executives, from every subsector and every size organization. With more than 2,000 members nationwide, ACEVO is a professional association of leaders, not an organization of organizations.
I marvel at the breadth of their work and the seriousness of their purpose. Most of the ACEVO people I have met are under 40, many closer to 30, and the energy in their crowded offices is palpable. I think the U.S. sector could learn from this group, and perhaps it is time we formed a similar sector-wide leadership association.
