David McKenna

If you think of Girl Scouts of the USA as a quaint organization that covers its operating expenses mainly by trotting out hordes of docile recruits to sell cookies on a grand scale, you’re not alone.

You’re not right … but you’re also not alone.

Mergers, acquisitions, spin-offs — all pretty common buzzwords in the for-profit world. But, increasingly, savvy nonprofits are realizing the benefits of looking outside themselves and introducing a variety of new ventures under the umbrella of their firmly established brand.

The right projects can help an organization expand or enhance the breadth of services it offers or the reach of its service area. They can bring in new supporters and volunteers, or engage existing ones in new ways. And they can, ultimately, mean more donations.

It would be hard to imagine a fundraising challenge more daunting than the one faced by the Archdiocese of Boston in January 2002, when the nationwide sexual-abuse scandal was at its height. The task was to win back the support of area Catholics dismayed by reports that the head of the archdiocese, Cardinal Bernard F. Law, had kept on dozens of priests who had sexually abused children and adolescents.

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