Dialing for dollars is an industry unto itself. Unless you are truly off the map, you’ve probably gotten a phone call or two or several. Goodness knows I get several a week, sometimes several a day depending on the electoral cycle. And, full disclosure, I paid the rent for a couple of months right out …
Boards are a regular feature of nonprofit life. They are in the for-profit world, too. But in a nonprofit, where budget and resources are frequently scarce–especially in the beginning–your board can be a major asset. Granting agencies realize this. They know a great board can make all the difference between a nonprofit that putters along, …
Boxes filled with Santa costumes, 4-inch high heels, and cocktail dresses landed in tsunami-affected areas. In some places, open tubes of Neosporin, Preparation H, and Viagra showed up. The aid community has coined a term for these items that get shipped from people’s closets and medicine cabinets as SWEDOW—Stuff We Don’t Want. From “Please Don’t …
What I’m about to tell you in this post, my most dearly held fundraising gems, will probably not be new to you at all. So why mention the obvious? Because some things cannot be overemphasized, especially when it comes to fundraising while the clock begins to countdown to the year’s end. Double if you’re the …
Tell me if you recognize this scenario: your nonprofit’s finally got legs, the membership is growing, your community visibility is up, the media’s paying attention, you have a steady revenue stream–your effort is finally bearing fruit! But for all the influx of people and volunteer hours, you’re not yet at the point where your financials …
Going paperless is a dream of mine. I have this vision of a clear desk, where everything remains on neat, brick-sized hard drives, accessible with a click of a mouse, in sortable and searchable folders. And real estate on my desk uncluttered but for the room to dream . . . I’m not alone. Every …
Early this summer, I watched residents from Sunrise Senior Living present a choral performance organized by the Levine School of Music. The choir was made up of people like my friend Miz N., all residents of Sunrise with varying levels of medical, physical, or mental disability. Clearly, I wasn’t expecting a Carnegie Hall-worthy performance from …
On day three of the power outage, courtesy of hurricane Isabel, I got some things done. I cleaned, cooked, and showered, thanks to gas-powered appliances that worked off the grid. But that was about it. I got no work done after the laptop battery died. Laundry piled up, and upon sunset, the impromptu neighborhood party …
The digital afterlife no longer takes most of us by surprise. We know that what we put up on the Internet is forever. And we know that unless we do some digital “estate planning,” give a loved and/or trusted one access to our accounts, or keep an updated list of passwords accessible to the executors …
The Nonprofit's Digital Afterlife And Proper Goodbyes Read More »
And now a post for creative and arts nonprofits, some of whom go dark over the summer–the local theater groups, the non-professional choirs, the small groups that offer cutting edge arts programs on a lean budget. This post is especially for them, especially in my DC-region neighborhood, because they sometimes struggle with fundraising more than …
