NonProfit Pro

Abila last week announced MIP Advance. MIP Advance extends the award-winning true fund accounting MIP family of products to the cloud with an intuitive interface. Clean, accessible reporting, analytics and customizable dashboards allow nonprofit organizations to promote financial stability and handle increasing financial complexity and growth with ease.

"Unfortunately, boards of directors have no clear model to follow when it comes to developing the strategic roles that is best suited to the (organization) they oversee. ... More importantly, the board must play a role that matches the strategic needs of the (nonprofit) and the state of its (mission's) sector." For both nonprofits and for-profits the strategic plan needs to be updated or revised every three to five years in a 21st century environment.

Three Strategic Dimensions

1. Nonprofits define strategies in many different ways. A great deal depends on whether or not the board has several directors...

I often run into fundraisers who somehow get it in their head that their donors only support their organization. Now, I know if they were being honest and really thought about it they would admit this is not true, but emotionally they act like their donors couldn't possibly support other causes. This is a problem. It's the monopoly mentality.

Merkle announced the launch of its new Data Management Cloud bundled solution. The Data Management Cloud, the foundation of Merkle's connected customer platform, provides marketers across industries with an integrated, layered set of components that enable meaningful customer experiences.

In Pinellas County, Florida, drama on the board of Pinellas County Homeless Leadership Board is playing out in full view, apparently over just what kind of leadership to utilize to shift to a "housing first" policy to underwrite its grantmaking.

Three members of the board believe that they will have to force their grantees to follow the "housing first" policy, and twelve others thought that point of view was just wrong. The three outliers, however, include the local sheriff, the county commissioner and the local public defender.

"If we don't have some type of clout, we're not going to...

If you want to create a corporate culture that embraces millennials (and you should), take a close look at the six-month research update to the 2014 Millennial Impact Report, the latest update to a five-year study conducted by Achieve, the research arm of Forte Interactive, and sponsored by The Case Foundation.

How do you engage millennials in corporate volunteering and giving programs? And how does this sort of cause engagement relate to accepting a job and employee satisfaction? As I have written about previously, different generations approach volunteering differently, so cause engagement is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.

Ned Breslin, CEO of Water for People, is stepping down after nine years to become executive vice president for partnership and strategic investment at the Wounded Warrior Project.

"I'm really proud of what we've done," Mr. Breslin said of his tenure at Water for People, an international development organization. "We have great results in the field, more money than we ever had, and created a great reserve fund. Starting at the end of last year, I started to sit back and say, 'I need a new challenge.'"

For that challenge, he decided to consider a cause other than...

Email today really isn't quite the AOL dear old Mom probably grew to know and love back in the day.

For starters, the inbox isn't the only communication grabbing your mother's attention.

Social media and the introduction of the third and fourth screens ensure that consumers are provided with digital content constantly.

Not only do consumers have less time to check email, with nearly half of emails now being read on mobile (48 percent), the inbox is physically smaller at times. That amount will increase as smart watches and similar gadgets continue to encourage on-the-go communication.

For the ultimate intense experience in fundraising, try tackling a capital campaign. Even if you have a campaign or two under your belt, it always pays to go participate in a capital campaign course as a refresher in the field.

It used to be that nonprofits shied away from prioritizing their brands. After 15 years of running MSDS, however, I've noticed that nonprofits are becoming more aware of the link between a brand's strategic value and organizational impact.

One reason for this shift, I suspect, is that competition—for funding, people's attention, human capital—has gotten stiffer. And nowhere is that more apparent than online. When a nonprofit's website is underwhelming, it is not only out there for the world to see, it also sends the wrong message and undercuts the organization's mission.