By Carter McNamara on June 17, 2010
Succession planning is one of the most important topics in nonprofit capacity building. That wasn’t the case even 10 years ago. Today, there’s more people moving from job to job, and a large number of baby boomers retiring. Effectively filling those open positions is critical to the success of the organization. Unfortunately, succession planning is […]
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By Carter McNamara on June 14, 2010
I recently encountered an organization that’s on the cusp of a big change … a change about which its huge constituency is feeling a bit uncertain. The agency has never had a chief executive, and that’s part of the new picture that has some supporters skeptical. After all, things have gone okay without one, why […]
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By Carter McNamara on June 8, 2010
The donor pool can be (and has been!) sliced and diced in a variety of ways. My preferred method of grouping donors is by motivation: The” Social Donor” uses charitable contributions to attract personal visibility and social prestige. Although no one admits is, there are plenty of major gift donors who engage in philanthropy as […]
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By Carter McNamara on May 27, 2010
Finances Are Just a Symptom, Not a Solution When people think of financial sustainability, they usually think of getting enough money to pay bills for the long-term. Then they focus on strategies to keep getting enough money. That’s the wrong approach. 1. Strategy for Sustainability — Be Realistic If an organization is trying to do […]
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By Carter McNamara on May 21, 2010
Too Often, What We Call a Program, Really Isn’t If you spent the day guiding old ladies across the street and someone gave you a dollar for doing it, would that mean you’re delivering a “program?” What many people call a program is too often just a sporadic set of disconnected activities — it’s not […]
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By Carter McNamara on May 17, 2010
On which side of philanthropy’s great divide do you stand? More importantly, where do your donors and potential donors stand? The divide used to be less noticeable, but with the explosion of social media over the past five years, tweeting, blogging, and linking has brought the great divide to the forefront. On the one side […]
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By Carter McNamara on May 10, 2010
I’ve worked with nonprofit organizations for a very long time. I’ve noticed two distinctly different approaches to leading: reactive versus proactive. You’ll very likely notice each of the two distinctly different types in the following paragraphs. Fundraising The reactive nonprofit is continually fundraising and then spending whatever funds are obtained — so the organization is […]
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By Carter McNamara on April 30, 2010
In another sterling example of checking brains at the nonprofit boardroom door, I recently learned of a charity that is financially on the ropes. Poor decisionmaking, weak leadership, the struggling economy, and ho-hum programming have this cultural entity (with a multi-million facility) on the verge of collapse. No one is currently at the helm, and […]
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By Carter McNamara on April 28, 2010
Last week, I did a workshop among nonprofit Executive Directors. Some of them expressed great frustration at the exorbitant compensation of CEOs of very large, for-profit companies. They mentioned that many of the companies’ products were very poor quality anyway. One participant offered a rather novel assertion that the pay of those CEOs should be […]
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By Carter McNamara on April 22, 2010
“Capacity building” is a term from the Grantonese language usually referring to an organization’s systemic effort to secure ever greater amounts of money on a consistent basis. It is not to be confused with “sustainability,” another word from the original Grantonese, referring to that state of fiscal nirvana in which a nonprofit believes it will […]
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Marion is a popular facilitator of workshops and Board retreats. Her expertise includes strategic planning, board development, governance and harnessing the power of technology. [Read more ...]
Carter McNamara of Authenticity Consulting, LLC, provides organizational development, consultant training and Action Learning services, and is developer of the Free Management Library. [Read more ...]