I am a huge Abe Lincoln fan and history buff. I love visiting historical sites in whatever town I visit. Here comes the but...But $15 million to restore Lincoln's cottage......geesh! Abe spent some summertime time there. Ok and that should be celebrated indeed and the place should be preserved. But here we are in the worst housing crisis Americans have faced and we spend (ok, private philanthropy spends) $15 million to rehab a cottage! All those mortgage payments folks can't make and we spend $15 million to rehab one old house. Where are our priorities?
Top 75 Nonprofit Blog
Articles I've Written
- Nonprofit Board Accomplishments #NonprofitBoards
- Nonprofit Board Onboarding #NonprofitBoards
- Nonprofit Board Advocacy #NonprofitBoards
- Nonprofit Board/CEO: Who's The Boss
- How to Create Jobs, Save the Planet and Make Money for Your Nonprofit
- Theory of Change: A Planning and Team Building Tool
- Seven Warning Signs that Something May Not Be Right in Your Nonprofit
- Nonprofit Crises, Executive Leadership and an Assessment Process
- Off the Shelf: How to Ensure that Your Strategic Plan Becomes a Valued Tool
- Act Your Age! The Organizational Lifecycle and How It Affects Your Board
Featured Podcast's/Webinars
- Board Chairs and Board Leaders
Mary Hiland, nonprofit leadership expert, interviews Mike Burns to discuss national research on board chairs and board leadership. - Inspired Nonprofit Leadership
Mary Hiland, nonprofit leadership expert, interviews Mike Burns to explore nonprofit board stages of development. Mike offers that recognition of board stages helps establish achievable expectations. - "Effectively Raising Capital: The Board Chair & Executive Director Relationship"
Mike Burns and Kevin McQueen, partners at BWB Solutions, and special guest Carla Weil, the Chief Strategy Officer from Capital for Change, the largest full-service CDFI in Connecticut, share their experiences effectively identifying funding sources and raising capital to strengthen an organization and provide more impact in low-income communities. Carla Mannings of Partners for the Common Good and CapNexus moderated the panel. - Share power to strengthen your board.
Are your board leaders struggling to balance power among themselves? Are they not understanding their roles outside of the boardroom? If you answered yes to any of these, listen to Ep. 58 of our podcast as we host Mike Burns and Judy Freiwirth. Mike and Judy share their expertise, which is based on their Nonprofit Alliance study Voices of Board Chairs. - The Nonprofit coach with Ted Hart - Nonprofit Coach: 3 Experts Take "Deep Dive" Into Strengthening Nonprofit Boards
From the Nonprofit board chair seat - Q & A
- Nonprofit Sustainability Planning
- Don't forget to give your nonprofit board members recognition
- Board Sustainability, Partnerships and Governance
- Don't Be Caught With a 'Bored' Board
- Take boardsmanship at your nonprofit to a whole new level
- What is the function of an executive committee?
- CEO Evaluation
- Board chairs and their fiduciary duties
- Boards should play an active part in the political process.
- Creating productive meetings
- Who's the Boss?
Mike's Book Reviews
- Book Review: The Business of Nonprofit-ing
- Making a Lasting Difference
I've been struggling to finish "Making a Lasting Difference" by Graeme Reekie since first I received this book about 6 months ago from Wren and Greyhound. The press is British but I thought the subject would be universal for nonprofits. Alas and sadly, this is a slow, tedious read filled with platitudes and almost helpful considerations nonprofit managers might want to consider when thinking about how to financially sustain their organizations. I have generally posited that a nonprofit has 4 "pillars" that comprise its DNA: program, management and operations, governance and sustainability. M. Graeme offers five: involvement ((having community support); Income generation; Innovation ("how to nourish and encourage incremental innovation); Improvement (systems and structures); and impact measurement. So he and I don't operate from the same lens but his is certainly one perspective. Making a Lasting Difference is constructed in four parts, 20 chapters and 211 pages. The possibly most innovative content is in Part 2, Chapter 2 where paradoxes, principles and practices of sustainability are presented. The paradoxes: a. Change - only by changing can organizations be sustainability, sustainability does not mean sustained, and, the lesson is that an org. must learn, adapt and evolve purposefully. Here the author poses that an org has to have its act together to achieve sustainability b. Octopus - organizations need to reach out in new directions to grow but growing in too many directions pulls them out of shape; diversified income does not mean reduced risk; and, an org must focus on core organisational purpose and structure. Here the author says that mission drift will not make you sustainable. c. Yes/No the things that an organisation needs to survive can also kill it. Saying yes to everything is fatal; sustainability is about more than just money. Capacity and quality matter. Understand when, how and what to say no to. I would offer this is the "stay in your lane" paradox. d. Efficiency - Efficiency preserves resources but can impair development. Organisations cannot evolve, adapt or respond without spare capacity. And orgs should balance strategy and scrutiny. They should invest in capacity building. To all of this I just want to say: uh, ok and thanks for the amazing insight. No, not really! I would not invest in this book. You can better spend your time reading the Federal Register looking for grant opportunities (good luck given the current environment) or going through the Foundation Center directory or building an endowment from rich people who loved you (yes, this really is the key to sustainability). Making a lasting difference may be a good idea when thinking about long-term impact from what your nonprofit does - reading this book will not. - The Board Member Orientation
Michael E. Batts - Nonprofit Finance: A Practical Guide
Sheila Shanker - Functional & Funded
Harvey Chess - grant proposal writing - Roberta's Rules of Order
Alice Collier Cochran - Meeting Management - Boards That Deliver
Ram Charan - corporate governance - Nonprofit Board Crisis: Nonprofit Book Review: The Mission Myth
Deirdre Maloney - Tiny Essentials of an Effective Volunteer Board
Ken Burnett - The Non Nonprofit
Steven Rothschild - Leap of Reason: Managing to Outcomes in an Era of Scarcity
Mario Marino - Everyone Leads
Paul Schmitz - Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead
David Meerman Scott, Brian Halligan and Bill Walton - Perspectives on Social Media Marketing
Stephanie Agresta, B. Bonin Bough and Jay Miletsky - Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business
Nancy Lublin - SHIFT: How to Reinvent Your Business...
Peter Arnell - Working in the Shadows
Gabriel Thompson
More of Mike's Book Reviews
- Broken Trust
S.P. King & R.W. Roth - The Imperfect Board Member
Jim Brown - Zone of Insolvency
Ron Mattock - The Open Road
Pico Iyer - Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity and the ACLU
Wendy Kaminer - SWITCH, How To Change Things When Change is Hard
Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Good Nonprofit Governance and Management Blogs
- Blog Carnival
- Board Cafe
- Board Source
- Bob Giloth
- Charity Navigator
- Don't Tell the Donor
- Find Me Grants
- Future Leaders in Philanthropy
- Gift Hub
- Give and Take
- GuideStar International's Blog
- Hildy Gottleib
- Interaction Institute
- Mission Based
- Nonprofit Blog Exchange
- Nonprofit Expert
- Nonprofit Finance Fund
- Nonprofit Quarterly
- Nonprofit World
- Nonprofiteer
- Philanthropy Journal
- Philantopic
- Policy Vs. Paper Clips
- Social Enterprise Alliance
- SWOTAUSA.COM
- White Courtesy Telephone
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