It is a scenario many nonprofit executive directors will recognize immediately: A fundraising proposal lands on the board table. The numbers are sound: a modest participation assumption, a realistic cost structure, a meaningful net return. For an organization facing a significant budget deficit in a year when grant funding has contracted and individual giving has softened, the proposal is not a luxury. It is an answer to a real and pressing problem.
Yet the board votes it down. The reason offered: "That's just not who we are." No elaboration follows. The meeting moves on.
Subscribing is just the beginning. Here's how to turn every episode into a conversation that actually changes things at your organization.
The idea that nonprofit executives couldn't cut it in the corporate world isn't just wrong. It's exactly backwards. Here's the evidence.
One organization's audit experience raises important questions about proportionality, funder expectations, and how to protect your capacity before you apply.
There is a unique kind of heartbreak that comes with leaving a nonprofit organization you deeply love.
A familiar story continues to surface across the nonprofit sector. A single marketing professional, often early in their career, is tasked with carrying the full weight of communications for an organization. Social media, graphic design, email campaigns, media outreach, website updates, event coverage, and strategic planning all sit on one desk. Predictably, something slips. What follows is often frustration or confusion from leadership, rather than reflection on how the role was designed in the first place.