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A Summer Learning List: 15 Books, Blogs, and Podcasts for Nonprofit Professionals

May 20, 2020
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Blogs & Newsletters, Books, Donor Newsletters, Management and Leadership, Personal Growth and Productivity, Podcasts

As the pandemic restricts where we can go and what we can do, there will undoubtedly be time for some extracurricular reading/listening this summer. Below are 15 books, blogs, and podcasts that I would characterize as essential reading/listening for any nonprofit professional. A SUMMER LEARNING LIST: THE BOOKS 1. Donor CARE: How to Keep Donors Coming Back After the First Gift (John Haydon, 2020) Nationally, nonprofits retained, on average, just 45% of donors from one year to the next in…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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BEAT DOWN FOR DOING GOOD: The Nonprofit Overhead Myth and Its Impact on Nonprofit Funding

June 1, 2019
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Books, Fundraising, Management and Leadership

[siteorigin_widget class="SiteOrigin_Widget_Headline_Widget"][/siteorigin_widget] Do you consider yourself a fairly charitable person? If so, here’s some bad news: Everything you think you know about what it financially takes to run a nonprofit is probably wrong. Because of that, you’re probably hurting the groups whose missions you claim to support. [A recent survey] shows most people still believe … that groups keeping operational or indirect organizational costs low are somehow more effective at accomplishing their missions. B. Paynter. “Donors Can’t Stop Believing That…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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The Remote Nonprofit: Meeting Your Mission Virtually

May 31, 2019
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Blinkist, Books, Evernote, G Suite, Management and Leadership, Nitro Pro, Nozbe, Personal Growth and Productivity, Remote Work, Snagit, Software

In thirty years’ time, as technology moves forward even further, people are going to look back and wonder why offices ever existed. (Richard Branson, CEO, The Virgin Companies) Remote nonprofit work is more prolific than you think. The 2018 Digital Adoption Report found that 41 percent of employees at nonprofits it surveyed were working exclusively outside the organization’s office delivering programs and services, working from home, or telecommuting. (NTEN, Digital Adoption in 2018). The report also found that roughly 12…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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How to Take Meeting Minutes

March 31, 2019
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Management and Leadership

You’ve been a victim of this. You go to a meeting, participate in an important discussion, and one or more of the following happens afterward: (1) no one sends a write-up of what was discussed; (2) meeting minutes are circulated – some 3 weeks later after the impetus for action has passed; and/or (3)meeting minutes are circulated but they are a transcript of the discussion, making it hard to discern what was decided and who is supposed to take action…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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Google for Nonprofits: Why It Makes Sense for a Small Organization

February 14, 2019
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G Suite, Management and Leadership, Software

In the early years of running my nonprofit, I would often think about what would happen to our digital files if I “got hit” by the proverbial “bus.” Yes, I had things backed up to Dropbox, but I was the only one with access to it. And then there is everything in my email account – literally thousands of conversations about our projects to which only I had access. If I succumbed to the bus injury, my board was going…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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The Nuts and Bolts of Finding Board Members for Your Nonprofit

May 27, 2018
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Board Development, Management and Leadership

Few people would disagree with the notion that building a team of people, particularly a nonprofit board, who will work together well and advance the larger cause of an organization, is challenging. It’s part luck and part hard work. There’s little we can do about luck, but we can try to boil the hard work of finding board members down to its essence. In this post, then, we will look at some best practices for getting the right board members…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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Building Your Board, Part 1: Who Should Play a Role?

April 2, 2018
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Board Development, Management and Leadership

Building Your Board Part 1: Who Should Play a Role? Anyone who has ever worked in a not-for-profit organization governed by a board of directors knows that the organization depends for its success on the strength of its board. Sure, you’ve got to have a strong and capable leader in the person who serves as Executive Director. But that person needs an equally visionary and supportive board to move the organization forward. How do you achieve this result? I won’t…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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The Nonprofit Strategic Plan Simplified Part 1: Crafting Your Mission, Vision and Values

September 4, 2017
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Management and Leadership, Strategic Planning

1. why are mission, vision, and values essential to the success of a strategic plan? Before a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy famously announced that "before the end of the decade, we will put a man on the moon." This was considered a very challenging technological feat at the time. Nonetheless, on July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. President Kennedy's vision…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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Simplify Your Life & Increase Your Productivity with Nitro Pro PDF

August 27, 2017
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Management and Leadership, Nitro Pro, Personal Growth and Productivity, Software

Smaller nonprofits and their staff members need to take advantage of every possible technological efficiency if they are to have any time available to focus on growing the organization to meet its mission. I've previously discussed the benefits of Nitro Pro in compiling documents created with different programs, e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, JPG, TIF, PDF, into a single document, such as your board agenda. That's one benefit of using a software product like Nitro Pro. Another is that Nitro Pro can…

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By Barbara Hopkins
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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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Recent Posts

A Summer Learning List: 15 Books, Blogs, and Podcasts for Nonprofit Professionals May 20, 2020
Media Monitoring: Tools for Mastering the Management of Digital Information March 15, 2020
The Savannah Bananas’ Lesson for Fundraisers: Focus on Fans February 2, 2020
The Nuts and Bolts of Email Fundraising December 8, 2019
How to Write a Fundraising Plan: A Nonprofit Primer July 22, 2019

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