NonprofitEye

Nonprofit Eye - Backstage Pass - New Feature A Letter from the Editor It's a new year and in lieu of resolutions, we have turned our "Eye" inward. The result? An examination of focus of the Nonprofit Eye. Looking out to the audience, two posts continue to grab a huge share of our readership (one on (of all the arcane topics: revenue recognition) and the other on Job Hunting). Readership takes a dive when I turn to self-exploration, technical topics, philosophical musings on nonprofit identity. I have to admit that even my own interest was waning as I've swum thru the waters of all things related to the Nonprofit World. So get ready for a new spin in 2008, and very soon...a new website and domain name. Such a move means a new start, appropriate for the beginning of a new year. And such a start demands a new theme. Time for audience participation here dear readers. Two themes call strongly to me and I'd love to hear your comments on them (both as to mark...

Deloitte & Touche and the Points of Light Volunteer Foundation conducted a study that challenges nonprofits to consider whether time is, in fact, money. They make an observation: (that) while a majority of nonprofit leaders think the greatest contribution companies can make to them is financial, corporate contributions represent only about one percent of the total operating budgets of nonprofits, indicating an extremely limited resource and then asked 200 non-profit leaders and 750 white-collar workers about the value of workplace skills to nonprofits. What do you need to run your company? The universal answer: money. The challenge: Aren't skilled management professional volunteers just as important (or more important) than money? What if (and this will be a shocker) there isn't enough money to go around? They concluded that "Despite the fact that nonprofits and volunteers both place a very high value on workplace skills, neither are capitalizing on them t...

Many a nonprofit staffer has looked around and not liked what they saw. We've all heard the complaints, perhaps we've been the one making them. The techie's complain that our leaders "don't understand today's technology"; the accountants complain that "they're kidding themselves about the fundraiser being a success"; the program staff complain that "the performance measures are BOTH impossible to meet AND meaningless"; the staff complain that "they aren't paid enough" AND "that they don't have an adequate budget to run an effective program". We all complain that we don't have the government and public support we require. The stats say the baby boomers are about to retire. Who will take the reigns? How will be meet the challenge our leaders leave us? There really is no other answer, we'll have to put our money where our mouth is. The challenge is not then, but now. Why wait? Let's lea...

The Challenge of Working For (and Staying in) a Nonprofit Job by pam ashlund PART I - NONPROFIT EYE BURNOUT SERIES Why did you start working for a nonprofit? Me? In a nutshell, I joined because I found no meaning in helping someone else make money. After college I suffered a few very empty years. I worked for a property management company, and I was miserable. I couldn't figure out how to inject meaning into my life and I figured either I start selling somebody else's shit, or I went to work helping people. It seemed like a basic "either-or" "good or evil" question. I choose the good. But since I work in finance and management...I didn't immediately find meaning. When I did it wasn't because I was helping people (or helping the people who help people). It was because I found my passion. I LOVE teaching, coaching and mentoring (i.e managing a team and supervision). I LOVE figuring things out; automating meaningless tasks, producing fantastic and usefu...

Dysfunction & NonProfit Burnout or a Balanced Life? Part III in Burnout Series by pam ashlund Choices, choices. Back in a September, '06 post, I started a conversation about fraud prevention in Nonprofit Hall of Shame . A colleague wrote that a significant factor contributing to fraud would be burn-out. This has led me to give a lot of thought to the idea of balance. Not just having a massage or taking a day off, but creating work-home-family-finance-health kind of balance. In response to my speculations on the causes of fraud, Ken Goldstein proposed a new movement (in his post " Fraud, Burnout and Getting What We Deserve "): "The Nonprofit Selfishness Movement": We all need to set aside certain times and days to something entirely selfish (and legal). A little "me time" to guiltlessly get away from the stress of constantly being other-focused. Time for our own families, time to take a vacation, and time to recognize our own worth without resorting...

Changing of the Guard: Nonprofit Transition by Pam Ashlund My head is spinning tonight. At the CA Association of Nonprofits conference last month I heard the news: founder, Flo Green, is retiring. It came as a shock to me because Flo and CAN are synonymous to me. We don't know each other at all, and therefore are not on a first name basis, but I think of her as Flo. That says something about her charisma. Upon hearing her talk, people leave thinking of her as a friend. And she has been a friend, to the nonprofit community and to me by way of inspiration. At that same conference I was introduced to the ideas of Fundraising speaker Kim Klein. She delivered a keynote I covered in NonProfit Confidence Problem . And, as with Flo, I was inspired and I left feeling like I had another friend. And now I hear (thru the Chronical of Philanthropy's article ) that Kim is also retiring. Just yesterday I was talking to a friend over lunch about the whole changing of the guard phenomena. Peo...

IT'S A NEW WORLD: ADVICE FOR NONPROFIT LEADERS by pam ashlund A Desktop Guide for Nonprofit Directors, Officers, and Advisors Sarbanes-Oxley and Nonprofit Management Technorati Tags: Compliance , Nonprofit , Nonprofit Trends , Sarbanes , Sarbox