By Louisa Hackett - The following is a continuation of a previous blog post introducing the Five Questions Driving Organizational Effectiveness.
Strategic plans come in many shapes, serve a variety of purposes and always take time. Read more >>
News & Views
A blog for those interested in what affects, motivates and drives the New York City Nonprofit Sector — written by CRE’s crackerjack consulting team. We hope you use this space to share your thoughts, ask questions and engage in conversations about our city, social justice and the nonprofit sector.
How Answering a Few Questions Can Make Your Organization More Effective
5 Questions Driving Organizational Effectiveness
By Louisa Hackett - What makes an organization effective? Sure strong managers, high performing staff, visionary leaders, sufficient resources and up-to-date technology all play a part. But a critical element, maybe the most critical, is clarity of purpose. Without knowing fundamentally what an organization is striving to accomplish and for whom, the chance to have the most effective programs is lost and muddled, diffuse programming can follow. Read more >>
Three Key Issues In Succession Planning
By Jean Lobell - The talk about succession planning tends to be fraught with some anxiety, some confusion, and some misconceptions. My experience is that this can be avoided or at least minimized, if we got clear about three things: Read more >>
Do I Have The “Right” Staff?
By Pavitra Menon - As managers, how often do you feel like you just do not have the “right” staff to help move the work forward? And by “right”, managers mostly allude to job performance. This is a very frustrating and stressful situation to be in as a manager because if you do not have staff performing adequately and sharing the workload it means YOU end up doing it all. A lot of the work I do with clients deals with situations where managers and staff just don’t seem to be able to work it out. Read more >>
Managing Staff Performance In Real Time Avoids Difficult Conversations
By Pavitra Menon - Supervisors are often uncomfortable when the time comes to have that “difficult” conversation with a staff person who has been performing poorly by the supervisor’s reckoning, but who self assesses their performance as quite stellar. How do you tell someone that they are totally missing the mark when they are really expecting a raise and not a reprimand? I think it’s much easier to adopt certain practices at the beginning of an employment relationship that can nip these issues in the bud. Read more >>
Managing Co-Leadership
By Holly Delany Cole & Valyrie Laedlein, CRE Co-Directors - In July 2010, the two of us wrote a blog post speaking to the decision that our Board of Directors had made to appoint the two of us to the roles of Co-Directors of Community Resource Exchange. Read more >>
IT Without IT, Part 10: Databases
By Ero Gray - This is one post in a continuing series aimed at nonprofit organizations with limited access to IT staff. The advice and opinions here will tend to be most useful to small and startup nonprofits, which often need to make IT decisions and accomplish IT tasks despite not having qualified folks to help. It should be assumed that all suggestions here are my attempt to recommend the simplest/easiest/most effective options for most offices. Your office may be quite different (or it may not even be an office). Also, as I'll frequently note, IT staff are necessary for any organization to function for long. Read more >>
Proposal Writing Tips for Government Grants – Part II
These “do’s” and “don’ts” were developed for government grant proposals, but work well in most grant situations. Read more >>
Should Boards Fundraise?
In a word, yes! Agreeing on the best role for the Board of Directors to play in fundraising is the source of perennial tension in many nonprofit organizations. Few people join Boards looking for opportunities to fundraise, but Board members should recognize that they have a special responsibility for the financial health and accountability of an organization. As a body, your Board must ensure that your organization has a fundraising strategy that is in line with your group’s projected spending. In addition, each Board member can and should be an advocate for your group within the greater community, and should make a financial contribution to the organization in an amount that’s significant to him or her. Read more >>
Presenting a Polished Pitch: Developing a Strong Case Statement
The core element of any successful fundraising or development program is your group’s case statement. A case statement is a brief document, no more than two pages or so that makes your “case”: it explains why potential funders (institutional or individual) should support your organization. A case statement informs your proposals or appeal letters to donors. To build a strong claim for funding, an organization typically tries to answer the following questions: Read more >>
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