Category Archives: Technical Assistance
Technical Assistance: Choosing to change board culture
May 8, 2019Diversity has been the talk of, and about, boards for a long time, albeit with more talk than action. Boards of nonprofits remain, according to BoardSource’s 2017 Leading with Intent: Overwhelmingly white Pretty evenly split between male and female, but … Continue reading
What your organization needs to become resilient
April 3, 2019The term “financial resilience” has proliferated in the capacity-building community as a north star for nonprofit organizations. But how do you get resilient, especially when it comes to your finances? Based on FMA’s 20 years of supporting small to mid-sized … Continue reading
Is your board giving policy helping your diversity initiatives — or holding them back?
February 12, 2019Adopting a board giving policy has become fairly commonplace in our country’s nonprofit sector. Board giving policies provide clarity about the board’s anticipated role as individual donors, as well as the organization’s expectations in terms of fundraising participation. This practice … Continue reading
Intercultural organizational development: Leaning into change
January 8, 2019Change can be challenging. It disrupts our sense of equilibrium, safety, and security. To manage change, we often try to overemphasize that which we believe we can hold constant. However, the only thing that is really constant is the … Continue reading
How and why your organization’s culture and values matter
December 11, 2018Ensuring a clear, strong mission statement and equally solid core values are two of the most important policies that a board is ever asked to create, as these are the core ideology the defining elements ̶̶ of an organization’s culture. … Continue reading
Kicking off the new year of board leadership learning
November 6, 2018For those of us involved with the Dodge Foundation Board Leadership Series, each New Year actually begins in the fall. We leave the champagne and hugging for January, but we do a pretty good job in October of looking ahead with a sense of hope and new possibilities. Our New … Continue reading
Board Leadership: The doctor will see you now
November 27, 2017Robert Frost once wrote, “An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.” As a former English teacher and current consultant to non-profit organizations, I couldn’t agree more. I thought about metaphors as … Continue reading
The Pro Bono Partnership Pundit: A Title Conundrum
October 17, 2017I often wonder if it is productive to try to fashion a catchy title for a post, particularly when you could be the only person who thinks it is catchy. This one’s a stretch. The driver for this title is … Continue reading
Introducing: Our new, streamlined Board Leadership Series
September 26, 2017For more than a decade, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation has provided a comprehensive Board Leadership Series free of charge to our grantees to ensure nonprofit boards and staff access the training, resources, and peer-to-peer mentorship that enable them to accomplish organizational … Continue reading
Pro Bono Partnership Pundit: The ‘duty to read’
September 26, 2017If you have attended one of the workshops presented by Pro Bono Partnership that includes a discussion on nonprofit governance, you likely have heard us talk about the three legal duties of nonprofit trustees and officers. In New Jersey, these … Continue reading
Pro Bono Partnership Pundit: Raising Unrestricted Revenue
August 29, 2017Are you tired of endless grant applications, expenditure tracking, report writing? Do you know that you have great services and could probably market more great services or products through a natural expansion of your programs? Are you thinking it would just … Continue reading
Board Leadership: Want a Stronger, More Diverse Board? Start Here
July 26, 2017Diversity on boards has long been a hot topic. While it has always been a best practice to have a board of directors that is reflective of your constituency, too few have lived up to that best practice. In the … Continue reading
Feeling Burned out? 7 Steps to Get Back Your NGO Mojo
July 25, 2017You’re probably so busy that you don’t have time to read this post. But, please stop multi-tasking and resist the pull to check your phone. I have an important question: Lately, when you walk into your non-profit job in the … Continue reading
Pro Bono Partnership Pundit: Sorting through the dreaded 501c3 reporting obligations
July 18, 2017Paperwork. Reporting requirements. I know. This isn’t a very captivating topic. But many tasks that nonprofits need to attend to aren’t captivating. But this is an important topic, one that if ignored could put your nonprofit at significant risk of … Continue reading
Board Leadership: Relationships Among the Parts
June 13, 2017Faithful readers of the Dodge Blog know that I have repeatedly urged practitioners in the social sector to “plan backwards” from a shared vision of success, using qualitative assessment rubrics as a tool. If you make time for the process … Continue reading