Executive Issues

The reality is that with more than 1.5 million nonprofits in the U.S., there's a lot of duplication. And donors are more selective, which means you must work twice as hard to give them a reason to provide you with their hard-earned money. Let’s explore six reasons why it’s time to close your nonprofit.

The Forum is building a Global Collaboration Village as the virtual future of public-private cooperation.

Your work as a fundraiser is to help donors experience the most possible joy through giving by enabling them to give to projects and programs that light them up and will help change the world. And it follows that it should be your goal to create an environment that makes this process easy and delightful for your donor.

When people ask me about the benefits of collaboration, my first instinct is to say it’s a no-brainer. In my experience, thoughtful collaboration with nonprofits, clinicians, research partners, government agencies, and even companies in the private sector only leads to good things.

Back in the 1950s, when a reporter asked the notorious Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, he supposedly responded, “That’s where the money is.” Proponents of the business of philanthropy should heed this simple wisdom and cultivate relationships with the wealthiest prospects — those with the most capacity to give.

I have used the phrase, “We’re building the plane while we fly it,” as part of my mantra. Initially, I thought it was a professionally acceptable way to say, “We have no idea. We’re making it up as we go and we will get there with a solid outcome,” but most recently I realized what it means, and I discovered why it is a good line of thinking in the current landscape for nonprofit leaders.

A nonprofit organization is created with the best of intentions. It is a way to address the service gaps in the marketplace and to uplift the planet. When we forget the key element, that this is a business, we can do more harm than good for those we can be helping.

If you find strategic planning boring, you’re not alone. Here are top reasons why you’re struggling to get your plan off the ground.

I realized that each Hogwarts House has admirable traits and that they could be combined to create some truly stellar teams. If we look at the descriptors of each house, we’ll see that the nonprofit arena needs Hufflepuffs as much as it needs Gryffindors. Let’s check out the Nonprofit World Houses.

The overwhelm can seem close to immobilizing. Leaders always need to make decisions. But this year, the amount of decision-making required to lead feels crushing. So much so that many nonprofit leaders are delaying big decisions.