Most nonprofits don’t know how to lobby and, worse, think that it entails cutting shady deals with sleazy characters. Yet lobbying is nothing more than educating legislators – a right that our democracy guarantees. To make change, nonprofits must learn to lobby. And who knows? They may even learn to love it.
Social entrepreneurship is attracting growing amounts of talent, money, and attention, but along with its increasing popularity has come less certainty about what exactly a social entrepreneur is and does.
Not only does a distinctive brand help a nonprofit raise its visibility among the public, it also develops deeper ties with donors, partners, and other stakeholders.
Aid organizations help build small businesses build capacity without asking whether people want the businesses’ products. As these stories show, successful programs start with real buyers.
Successful social innovators nurture close ties between members and infuse their networks with a common set of values.
Funders are calling for more program evaluation, but nonprofits are often collecting dubious data, at great cost to themselves and ultimately to the people they serve.
Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, not the isolated intervention of individual organizations.
With an understanding of these 10 funding models, nonprofit leaders can use the for-profit world's valuable practice of engaging in succinct and clear conversations about long-term financial strategy.
Social entrepreneurship is attracting growing amounts of talent, money, and attention, but along with its increasing popularity has come less certainty about what exactly a social entrepreneur is and does.
By working closely with the clients and consumers, design thinking allows high-impact solutions to social problems to bubble up from below rather than being imposed from the top.
