Nonprofits & NGOs
Inclusive Board Meetings
Diverse teams get better results, but it takes skill and thoughtfulness to make the most of diverse experience at a board table.
Katie Smith Milway
Measurement & Evaluation
The Hard Virtues of ‘Soft’ Program Measurement
New evidence shows that the very act of giving feedback on nonprofit programs can predict participant outcomes.
Philanthropy & Funding
Five Accelerators of Equitable Grantmaking and How to Harness Them
In the last two years, this five-cylinder engine has propelled funders to break through historic barriers to change.
Nonprofits & NGOs
How Listening to Constituents Can Lead to Systems Change
Listening to participants allows nonprofits to go beyond the “what” of change to the “how and why,” the first step toward changing unjust systems.
Foundations
The Myth of Perpetuity in Foundation Strategy
As philanthropic boards debate digging deep to address pandemic-related crises, a study of articles of incorporation of the top 50 foundations surfaces pathways to big bets regardless of founding intent or degree of post-recession recovery.
Organizational Development
What Social Sector Leaders Think About Feedback
An SSIR survey of nearly 2,000 leaders of nonprofits, foundations, and other charitable organizations revealed that they believe feedback is important but still struggle with figuring out how to do it.
Foundations
Funding Feedback
Fund for Shared Insight is pooling the cash and convictions of 13 philanthropies to build the field of end-user feedback. Can its leaders become role models for the positive change they seek to create? Open access to this article is made possible by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (Fund for Shared Insight).
Governance
How Nonprofit Boards Can Start the Merger Conversation
There are six moments in every organization’s business cycle that are ripe for discussion around how mergers and alliances can advance mission and impact.
Leadership
Making Founder Successions Work
Nonprofits benefit when they carefully plan an extended role for founders who step down. Open access to this article is made possible by The Bridgespan Group.
Business
Hidden Talent: How Smart Companies Are Tapping Into Unemployed Youth
Refining the raw talent of the 5.5 million young Americans out of work and out of school provides compelling opportunities for companies, youth, and society—a rare trifecta—that a growing number of corporate leaders are betting on.
IMPACT INDIA
Q&A With Desh Desphande
Serial technology entrepreneur Desh Deshpande is taking innovation techniques created at MIT and using them to solve social problems in India.
Leadership
The Nonprofit Leadership Development Deficit
Succession planning is the No. 1 organizational concern of US nonprofits, but they are failing to develop their most promising pool of talent: homegrown leaders.
Nonprofits
Collaboration-palooza
A new study shows that organizations have a high level of satisfaction with nonprofit collaborations and a desire to collaborate more.
Nonprofits
Why Nonprofit Mergers Continue to Lag
The three hurdles that nonprofit managers must overcome to create successful mergers. Includes magazine extras.
Foundations
Building Bigger Bets with Philanthropy
Nancy Roob shares how the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation is aggregating funds to scale what works.
Foundations
Don’t Dig a Deep Hole, Then Leave
Philanthropy lessons from India—Padmini Somani, head of two different foundations, talks about following the data and staying the course.
Nonprofit Management
The Challenge of Organizational Learning
A recent study found three common barriers to knowledge sharing across nonprofits and their networks, as well as ways and means to overcome them.