David La Piana

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.

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.

On June 20th, the sixth annual Craigslist Boot Camp occurred on the campus of UC Berkeley. I gave a morning talk on Real-Time Strategic Planning and my colleague Vance Yoshida discussed “How to Build a High Impact Board.”

We also launched La Piana Consulting’s latest research initiative, Nonprofit Next, funded by the James Irvine Foundation and Fieldstone Alliance. Our staff set-up video booth stations throughout the event and collected nearly 100 testimonials from attendees on where they will take nonprofits next. We asked folks to give us their take on the state of the sector, their own innovative ideas for coping with change, and any insights they would like to share.

Be sure to visit our website and sign-up for our newsletter as we will be uploading videos soon!

The White House recently called for Americans to donate relief aid to Pakistan by text message. I doubt this is a first for the Obama White House, but it sure makes sense. Americans are generous to a fault, and these days, they seem to be texting like it is going out of style. So why not combine the two?

Has your organization incorporated cell phone texting as a fundraising medium? Let us know and we might feature your campaign in our latest research initiative, Nonprofit Next.