INSIGHTS
Charting the Course: A Practical Guide to Nonprofit Succession Planning
Learn how to navigate the looming leadership crisis in the nonprofit sector.
Discover common succession planning obstacles and download a step-by-step guide to ensure a smooth transition and safeguard your organization's mission.
Leading Through Transformation: The Nonprofit CEO's Toughest Call
Change is the hardest decision for nonprofit CEOs, yet it's essential in today's dynamic landscape. Curtis Strategy partners with you to navigate the complexities of transformation, providing support, guidance, and an objective view. We help you overcome resistance, build a culture of change, and empower your leadership to drive success. Don't face change alone – contact us to learn how we can help your organization thrive.
Partnerships Aren't Perfect: How to Overcome the Obstacles in Nonprofit Partnerships
While strategic partnerships offer numerous benefits to nonprofits, the process of forming them can be daunting due to perceived hurdles such as identifying the right partner, creating agreements, and managing the collaboration. However, these challenges can be overcome with careful planning and execution.
Unlocking Impact: How Nonprofits Can Use Data to Drive Positive Change
Data is the fuel that propels effective decision-making, allowing nonprofit organizations to maximize their reach and achieve their missions more efficiently. This is why a data strategy is crucial - it empowers nonprofits to leverage their information to build a more impactful future. Data is a powerful tool, and in the hands of forward-thinking organizations, it can pave the way for a brighter future for both the organization and the communities it serves.
Embracing the Future: Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Sustainability
By embracing strategic planning and adapting to the ever-changing landscape, nonprofits can continue to deliver their vital services, address community needs, and make a lasting impact on the world. Strategic planning is not a one-time exercise; it is an ongoing process that requires continuous adaptation and refinement to ensure that nonprofits remain relevant, effective, and resilient in the face of challenges and opportunities.
The Secret to a Successful Nonprofit Merger
In recent years there has been a massive upswing in the number of nonprofit mergers and affiliations throughout the country. As a nonprofit consulting firm that has facilitated a number of merger transactions for our clients, we have seen firsthand the factors that contribute to deal success. A nonprofit merger or affiliation (M&A) is weighted heavily on the relationships that exist between two organizations. Meaning, the currency of a nonprofit deal is the relationship that exists between the two organizations, which means the progress of the deal will move at the speed of trust.
CEO’s Guide to Managing Capabilities and Complexity
In recent years the role of nonprofit CEO has become increasingly complex. Between managing large-scale turnaround, merger integration, reducing costs, and technology implementation, nonprofit leaders are challenged with issues that require innovative thinking and new approaches to managing.
In this article, we are going to provide insight into two areas of focus that go hand-in-hand to help CEOs achieve short and long-term goals.
How to Gain a Digital Competitive Advantage Over your Peers
Your non-profit peers are all working hard to serve their community and fulfill their mission. How can you know if you are gaining or losing ground against them? And once you know where you stand, is there anything you can do about it?
While obvious metrics like the number of employees they have or their total budget will give you an overall sense of their scale, these metrics alone cannot tell you whether you are winning mindshare or gaining an edge in awareness, which can lead to better fundraising or an increase in your base of volunteers.
Fortunately, there are ways to use online resources to find out how you compare to your peers. By analyzing search keywords, organic search traffic, ad budgets and social media sites, you can get a good idea of where you stand and where you need to improve.
3 Themes Taking Us Into 2023
2022 continued to be a year of rapid change for our mission driven clients and for the health and human services, association, credit union, and higher education sectors they operate in.
As the major shifts in the landscape show no signs of slowing, our nonprofit consultants have identified three themes that have been the focus of 2022 that will carry over into 2023: nonprofit consolidation, succession planning, and enhancing board governance.
Making Mergers & Affiliations Part of Your Strategic Plan
The most challenging part of implementing nonprofit M&A as a strategic solution is that the relationship building process between organizations can often take time and success is not guaranteed. However, mergers and affiliations can be used to reach a level of scale that can’t be achieved organically, which may be a necessity to remain competitive, sustain payroll, address succession, or to improve an organization’s ability to meet the demands of those being served. Mergers are a vehicle that will allow leaders to fulfill their strategic needs at scale.
The Top 3 Areas to Address when Transitioning from Strategic Planning to Implementation
The nonprofit strategic planning process is a time that unites leadership and teams to collaborate, innovate, and ultimately create a solid plan that will guide the organization into the future.
But what comes next?
When the planning process is complete, many nonprofits are left to wonder how to implement the plan and meet the goals that have been set forth. The enthusiasm begins to wane and is replaced with feelings of unease and uncertainly as bigger and more timely decisions must be made.
If you have felt this shift, then you are not alone. Our nonprofit consultants have recommended 3 areas to address when transitioning from strategic planning to implementation.
Leading Through Times of Organizational Change
Change involves going from the current way of doing things to a desired future state. Throughout the change process it is the organization’s leaders—the sponsors of change—who play the most critical role in determining the success of the effort. It’s easy to lead when all goes according to plan. However, organizations typically experience challenges with implementation. While these challenges can be temporarily uncomfortable, organizational leaders should not let that deter them. Instead they need to embrace change and view it as part of their role. Organizational leaders need to be adaptable by being able to detect and respond to change. That begins by embedding change and innovative thinking into the organization’s culture.
3 Ways to Reignite Your Why When Facing Leadership Fatigue
On any given day, part of being a leader means facing and working to overcome challenges. Whether it be budgetary, staffing, or customer related, it is often considered ‘part of the job’ and, in turn, strategies are developed to help manage the stress while maintaining continued progress.
Today, having pushed so hard for so long to get their organizations through the crisis, many leaders are finding themselves experiencing leadership fatigue. Given the pace of change is not slowing down and that focus must remain on ensuring organizational viability, sustainability, and relevance, it is more important than ever for leaders to find ways to get re-energized.
How to Talk with Your Nonprofit Board About Mergers and Affiliations
Making the decision to explore a nonprofit merger and affiliation can feel challenging enough. However, once that decision is made, it’s time to approach your Board of Directors. As nonprofit merger and affiliation consultants, we are hearing more and more from CEO’s and Executive Directors that want to know where and how to begin. Learn how to get started and what to do along the way.
Learn How to Reinvent Your Business Model & Reclaim Your Future
Ultimately, exploring new nonprofit business model ideas is about being intentional when preparing for the future and taking the lead on reinventing your own services before the competition comes along with their own improved or new service offerings. Our team of nonprofit consultants recommends following a process that focuses on the following three areas: Value, Capacity, and Viability.