Remembering to Plan

It’s October.  For those of us whose fiscal year follows the calendar, it’s planning and budgeting time.  I was preparing for a Development Committee meeting, on the agenda of which was to start strategizing our priorities for 2010.  As I thought about how to frame the conversation with this group of dedicated volunteers, but volunteers [...]

Peoples’ Choice at the Nonprofit Excellence Awards

We received over 120 nominations for this year’s Nonprofit Excellence Awards.  12 finalists (3 in each of 4 categories) have been selected.  Not one of them?  Here’s your chance to showcase your creativity, talent and at the same time help promote the idea that Collaboration is Key to 700+ attendees at the Nonprofit Excellence Awards [...]

Praise for Executive Directors

One of my pet peeves… hearing people (generally from the private sector) laud a nonprofit Executive Director’s talents by way of saying that (s)he is so great, (s)he could “even be successful as the CEO of a corporation/business.“
Why does this statement cause me angst?
1. It insinuates that being the CEO of a for-profit company is [...]

Leadership’s Impact

We lost eight years of stem cell research thanks to the failed leadership of our last president.  Eight years is a long time in the medical world and I can’t help but wonder what would have happened had we not thrown the stem cell lines into the garbage.  I never imagined that this decision would [...]

Questioning the Value of Nonprofit Boards

What is the value and appropriate role of nonprofit boards… really?
This question came up recently when I had the opportunity to meet Marek Sedivy, the Director of Greenlights’ equivalent in Prague, who is in the United States on a Fulbright Fellowship.  Nonprofits, or NGOs (non-governmental organizations) as they are called in much of the rest [...]

Entrepreneurship and Collaboration

I was reading an article this morning about Hartwick, a small town in northern Vermont that, although located in one of the poorest rural regions in the United States, is fast becoming a “food-topia” where the farmers and food-based businesses (i.e. cheesemakers, seed producers, restaurants) work collaboratively to create a sustainable local economy… centered around [...]

Too Many Nonprofits: The Real Question Is…

Greenlights recently got a good bit of publicity (Statesman, GivingCity Magazine, AFP Blog, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Andrea Ball’s blog) around a study and recommendations we recently completed on the number of nonprofits in the Austin MSA relative to other cities of similar size, demographics and other characteristics.  The most commonly sited statistics from that study [...]

Fundraising in Today’s Environment

I attended last week’s Funders Forum presented by the Greater Austin  Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and the Austin-Central Texas Chapter of the American Association of Grant Professionals.  The theme of the day was, not surprisingly, Embracing the New Realities of Philanthropy.
There were a number of great takeaways that I wanted to share [...]

Learning from the Town of Steel

I’ve just returned from a two week vacation, half of which was spent in Pittsburgh.  If you have never been to or lived in Pittsburgh, this may seem like an odd place to have spent my vacation.  But as my friend Jill, who was also back in Pittsburgh for a quick visit before moving to [...]

Collaboration Is Cool. Be a Part of It.

I had the opportunity to present with Kerri Qunell from the Capital Area Food Bank this morning to the I Live Here I Give Here (ILHIGH) board about the We Are One Central Texas campaign with which we both have been involved. ILHIGH is focused on inspiring individuals to donate by educating them about community [...]