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Practical Strategies for Growing a Nonprofit Organization

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10 Actionable Twitter Insights for the Nascent Nonprofit

August 22, 2017
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Books, Management and Leadership, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO TAKE ACTION ON THESE TWITTER INSIGHTS Twitter is a form of social media. Merriam-Webster defines social media as “forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and miroblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).” Twitter’s hallmark was its 140 character post limit. This dates to its birth in 2006, when it was designed to be used via wireless carriers’ text-messaging…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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Two Simple Meeting Agenda Assembly / Distribution Strategies to Enhance the Quality of Participation

July 17, 2017
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Books, Evernote, Management and Leadership, Nitro Pro, Software

Two Simple Meeting Agenda Assembly / Distribution Strategies to Enhance the Quality of Participation 1. The Meeting Agenda Assembly / Distribution Challenge As a nonprofit leader, you’ve lived through this scenario, only to have your blood pressure rise and your patience tested severely. Here it is: You arrive at a meeting that you organized. This could be a meeting of your board or it could be a meeting of a committee that you chair. One-third of the participants are on…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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Forces for Good: The 6 Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits

July 12, 2017
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Books, Management and Leadership

If you're small and trying to grow bigger and have high impact, take heart. Most of the things you beat yourself up about don't really matter all that much, at least according Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant. Their research shows that perfect management, brand awareness, breakthrough ideas, textbook mission statements, overhead ratios and large budgets are not the best measures of nonprofit excellence. The best measure, it turns out, is the extent to which a nonprofit can mobilize…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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5 Reasons Why Hosting a Houseparty is a Great Fundraising Idea for Growing Your Nonprofit

July 10, 2017
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Akubo, Board Development, Books, Fundraising, Marketing

If there's one fact about philanthropy that has withstood the test of time it's that individuals are the greatest source of donations. As shown in the chart below, individual giving comprised 71 percent of all philanthropic gifts in 2016. What's even more interesting about this fact is that most of the individual donors are not wealthy. Rather, they are people of more modest means without a lot of disposable income. These folks typically make up the base of the traditional…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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Making Meetings Work

May 6, 2017
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Books, Personal Growth and Productivity

Updated 9/6/2017 The Problem "For many people, meetings are a lot like the weather - everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about it. Poor meetings, like bad weather, are accepted. Many have come to accept the 'fact' that they will be largely boring, unproductive, and generally a pain in the neck .... Like back pain, people think bad meetings just have to be endured." (John E. Tropman, Making Meetings Work: Achieving High Quality Group Decisions, Sage Publications…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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