Tips & Tools Articles
Building a Trusting Organization
No organization, project or company can thrive without building trust within the very fabric of its culture. What is the geography of trust?
The Seven Principles of a Trusting Organization
Deliver on Your Promises
Be able to say why your organization matters in the time it takes to ride from the first to the tenth floor on an elevator. Tell the story whenever you get a chance. It's great for building awareness, and it will make your next fundraising appeal easier too.
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Fix Killer Meetings
Meetings have a bad reputation as being ineffective and a waste of time. They don't have to be, if you follow these simple guidelines.
- Don't call a meeting to ask your staff's opinion if the decision has already been made. If their recommendation is different from what is going to happen, they will feel more resentment and anger than if they had never been asked in the first place. If you want to announce a decision, send a memo. Meetings should be dialogues. If they turn into monologues, eyes will quickly glaze over.
- Head off interruptions. Be sure that the room will be free for the duration of the meeting. If there is a phone in the meeting room, it should be unplugged or messages should be forwarded.;
- Do the brainstorming first. Don't waste meeting time. Brainstorm through e-mail before the meeting to develop approaches to the issue at hand.
- Establish a clear time frame for meetings - and keep them short! Meetings show diminishing returns after the first half hour, and little good can be expected to come after the first half of the meeting. Establish a clear time frame for the meeting. To encourage quick decisions, meet in a room without chairs.
Five Abilities that Give Winners the Edge
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The Fundamental Foundation of a Successful Organization is Built on Three Things:
- The environment created by senior management;
- The availability of a stable and diverse resource base;
- The strategic use of information technology.
How firm is your organization's foundation?
Getting a Group to Make a Decision
Whenever a group faces too many choices, time gets wasted discussing them. Strong leaders can use this four-step approach to move the team along:
- List every option.
- Vote on which options deserve further discussion.
- Count the votes. Any option with at least half of the votes stays in contention for the next round.
- Continue voting until the number of discussion points is manageable.
Source: Team Think -- Ava S. Butler, McGraw Hill
Helpful Tips for Developing Your Internet Site
A Web site can be your organization's most valuable tool to outreach, to educate, to fundraise, and to program. Is your Web site doing all that it can? Use the following tips to assess your site's usefulness.
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How Do I Write to a Member of Congress?
Your greatest allies can be your U.S. Senators and Congress members. Let them know about your program and how they can help. This simple one-page article provides an outline on how to format a letter to your congressional delegate.
Keeping Your Emails to the Point
Email can be a great tool to energize staff, communicate with constituents, and cultivate donors -- as long as it is used wisely. Here are some tips to assure that your emails are welcomed, opened, and read.
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Lobbying and 501c(3) Nonprofit Organizations
The leaders of the nation's nonprofits do many things well, but representing their clients interests before government is not one of them. In the course of a major research study by the Brookings Institution ("A Voice for Nonprofits") nonprofit executives were remarkably ill informed about the primary law that governs their operations.
When it comes to their rights to lobby, many nonprofit leaders believe that they have no rights at all. Such views are not merely wrong, they are harmful. Not only can tax-exempt (those with IRS 501c(3) designations) nonprofits engage in more lobbying than is commonly accepted, they can lobby extensively if they take advantage of a 1976 IRS law known as the "H elective."
Raising Millions on the Web
A true story. Learn how Heifer International successfully blended visionary beliefs, strategic planning, and innovative implementation to raise millions on the web. They are truly an Internet success story within the nonprofit sector.
Stem the Tide of Email
Are you drowning in a flood of email? Here are some tips for stemming the tide.
Use filters aggressively. If you don't have an email program that filters and sorts messages that filters and sorts messages, get one now. Sort incoming mail into folders for your staff, your managers, others in your organization, clients, personal contacts (like friends), and any professional discussion lists or forums. Let everything else go into a generic inbox folder. When you read your email, go through the folders in that order.
Pick up the phone. Most of us are too quick to click the "reply" button. Email is best suited for messages that don’t really need a response. If you find yourself looking at an online back-and-forth dialogue, pickup the phone and have a real conversation.
Source: Managing People at Work
Six Key Principles for Adult Learning
The unique characteristics of adult learners cannot be overestimated when designing a training event. Materials, training flow, and activities must reflect the broad spectrum of learning styles and individual experiences each learner brings to the event. Milano and Ullius have produced six key principles related to adult learning.
The 60 Second Guide to Working with the Media
Quick Tips for Staff and Volunteers in Building Good Media Relations.
Strategy is About Asking Questions
Strategy is about asking questions -- but the right ones. Meaningful strategic conversations require rigorous probing into what your organization does, why, and how.
The first answer to any question is rarely the best one. Taking things for granted in developing a great organization is dangerous. Glib assumptions can kill an initiative. Board members earn their keep when they push and probe and dig until they get down to the bedrock of issues. Executives become effective when they do the same.
What is a Nonprofit's Bottom Line?
Unlike business with a focus on the financial bottom line, faith-based and community organizations have a triple bottom line:
- Mission clarity,
- Leadership effectiveness and accountability in the form of accomplishments and community needs met.
- Financial performance.
Source: "A Recipe for Non-Profit Success: Managing the Linkages and Key Elements of Successful Organizations." Randall A. Stubbs. Fund Raising Management: Jan. 1988; 28, 11; p. 17.
What People Want from a Change Leader
According to Mark J. Tager and Harry Woodward in Leadership in Times of Stress and Change, individuals facing change seek five common needs from change leaders.
- Have a vision.
- Provide motivation.
- Instill confidence.
- Create a direction.
- Provide resources.
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