So many nonprofit board members are enthusiastic and well-meaning but too often they back out of their commitments.  Bet you have run into this problem! And I have been on the other side too, as a board member. In the heat of an exciting discussion, I suddenly found myself making personal commitments. Then later, in [...]

Occasionally I will get an email asking how to start a nonprofit organization.  There are several great resources online that can help, but before I get to that I always kindly caution them on a few points. It is very time and labor intensive to start a nonprofit.  You should be certain that this is [...]

I sent out a special email on Monday to those who are signed up for the Step by Step Fundraising newsletter.  It included some of the tips that I also posted here:  Annual Fund Drive, End-of-year Fundraising Success Strategies. I got an email back from Tony with some great comments that maybe you can relate [...]

The largest fire in LA County so far has burned 220 square miles and devastated hundreds of families. There’s a centralized volunteer response team organized by L.A. Works, in partnership with the Volunteer Center of Los Angeles. Find out more at the L.A. Works website. Whether you are currently job hunting or not, volunteering can [...]

National Volunteer Week is coming up April 19-25, 2009 (thanks to Joanne at About.com for the reminder!)  This could be a great time for your nonprofit to recognize, show appreciation for and step-up your volunteer organization efforts. For many groups volunteers are a crucial part of keeping the organization funded. Here are some articles with [...]

“AHHH! What to do? Too many volunteers – Nonprofits are overwhelmed, volunteers underwhelmed!” that was the teaser Chris Jarvis posted to Twitter.  With a line like that I couldn’t help but follow the link he left.  And his blog post titled Six Reasons Why You’ll Never Volunteer Again did not disappoint. As Chris points out [...]

In the first part of this series, I introduced the topic of how to handle bad behavior from your board members. With this continuation, I’m throwing out five more examples of how board members can hurt (rather than help) your non-profit and, of course, what to do about it. 6. The Board Member Doesn’t Respect [...]