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.
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.
Unlocking Potential: How Organization Design Can Boost Your Team's Performance
Struggling with unlocking the full potential of your nonprofit team? You're not alone. Collaborative efforts can often be hampered by unclear communication, unhealthy competition, and unclear roles, leading to lost productivity and missed opportunities. But what if a framework existed to guide you in empowering your team to achieve peak performance? Imagine a team that collaborates seamlessly, embraces challenges with enthusiasm, and consistently achieves objectives. It's possible with the right framework.
Our nonprofit consultants have 5 tips based on real-world success stories help organizations like yours reignite employee passion, foster ownership, and drive measurable results.
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.
5 Steps to Drive Accountability and Build a Culture of Performance
Organizations are overflowing with data, but not all data is created equal. In order to use data to improve performance and mission outcomes, it is important to collect the right data, analyze it effectively, and make data-driven decisions.
Our nonprofit consultants recommend 5 steps to enable CEOs and COOs to use data effectively to drive the change needed to build a culture of performance.
The Fundamentals of Feedback
We’ve all heard the adage “feedback is a gift.” While most nonprofit leaders would agree, providing constructive feedback is a skill not all managers have mastered. Many managers are so uncomfortable giving feedback, that they avoid difficult conversations altogether. And receiving constructive feedback gracefully is another skill set altogether.
But studies show that high performing individuals crave feedback. In order to develop and retain that talent, and compete in the war for talent, we have to create a culture of feedback within our organizations. This means teaching our staff how to give - and receive - feedback effectively.
In this post, we will explore the do’s and don’ts for giving and receiving feedback and how you can support a culture of feedback within your organization.
Four Pillars of Successful Performance Reviews
For the most part, leaders agree on the importance of performance reviews and high performing individuals crave feedback. So why does it feel so difficult to create an effective performance review process? And how should reviews be designed to ensure they are effective? In order to function at their best, performance reviews need to be consistent, objective, contextual, and impactful.
Capacity & Cost Savings Through Org Design
It is important nonprofit organizations remember to address ‘how we work’ before ‘how many of us are working’ in order to tackle capacity issues more effectively. Our nonprofit consultants recommend addressing the root cause of capacity issues to free up time and resources that can be used to achieve your nonprofit organization’s strategic goals. This will lead to improved performance, reduced costs, and increased efficiency.
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.
The Top 3 Takeaways from Nonprofit Organization Design Projects
You may have heard the phrase “structure follows strategy”, which signifies the need to assess and change how an organization operates to ensure its ability to fulfill its’ nonprofit strategic plan. When our nonprofit consultants engage with clients during organization design projects we often see 3 common themes that arise throughout the process. The way in which the organization and its leadership respond to these themes is critical to success and the ability to achieve desired outcomes.
5 Reasons to Start Strategic Planning Today
With 2023 quickly approaching, many purpose-driven organizations may be thinking about designing new strategic plans to help ensure long-term sustainability and viability.
Whether you operate in health and human services, higher education, credit unions, or associations, our strategic planning consultants have 5 reasons for you to start strategic planning today.
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.
5 Nonprofit Strategic Planning Tips for Senior Leadership
A dynamic and effective nonprofit strategic plan is arguably one of the most integral parts of any organization’s viability and success in today’s landscape. Get 5 Tips from our nonprofit consultants to make your strategic planning project a success.
4 Steps for Taking On Technology Today!
Complexity is a word that today's nonprofits are all too familiar with and the manner in which leaders address it can mean the difference between success and failure.
What is making the difference for many leaders and giving them the competitive edge, is the understanding, adoption, and implementation of improved and scalable technology solutions.
However, the adoption of new technology and digitalization can be a culture shift for many nonprofit organizations. The multitude of options, new terminology, and projected costs can - at times - make it feel as though it would be easier to maintain the status quo. For new systems to be successful, it requires an organization-wide commitment to learning, exploration, and buy-in. This begins with senior leadership making a commitment to the change.
Clarity, Capacity, or Capability? 3 Methods for Improving Team Performance Today
As a nonprofit organization implements new strategy or experiences growth, there are oftentimes roles within that organization that require new skills and capabilities, and deeper levels of understanding by management. Whether it be the ability to manage more complexity, learn new skills, increase the sphere of oversight, and/or operate with an increased level of strategic perspective, some team members embrace the challenge and exceed their perceived limitations while others may struggle to succeed in a new or expanded role.
Learn how to better structure the roles within your organization to support success or identify areas where change is necessary.
Realign or Redesign: The Nonprofit Response to Disruptors
In order to remain relevant in the rapidly changing environment, nonprofits must face the current disruption, reassess their strategy, and decide on a path forward. Some disruptors may require just a heightened awareness while others may require a pivot in strategy.
Incorporating Innovation into Nonprofit Strategic Planning
A dynamic and effective nonprofit strategic planning process is one of the most integral parts of any nonprofit’s viability and success. From evaluating and defining the eco-system to designing the vision and focus for the future, present day strategy must go beyond the conventional to incorporate innovation through the adoption of new services and the refining of existing services..
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.
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.
M&A Success: Keeping It Local While Taking It Global
2022 is here and it has brought with it the on-going organizational strategy of nonprofit mergers and affiliations (M&A) as a means of growth, competitive positioning, and increasing resources to retain staff. While some organizations are considering this strategy for the new year, many others are just now beginning to experience the success that is a result of their efforts.
What is the the secret to their success?
Well, as nonprofit merger and affiliation consultants, we’d tell you it’s not much of a secret at all.