Learning to Lead for Impact
leadership insight from Tom Okarma
the latest and greatest…
5 Questions Every Nonprofit Leader Should Ask
How to change your thinking to make 2016 your best year yet. We're quickly coming up on the end of 2015, and it's time to start thinking about the new year. How can you help your nonprofit board and...
How to Extend the Reach of Every Volunteer
14 Ways To Create a Volunteer Program Built for Impact Are you using volunteers to extend the reach and capabilities of your team? No doubt about it, volunteering is on the rise, or at least, the...
Where is Your Nonprofit Going?
Understanding the key role Mission, Vision, and Values play in moving an organization forward. These elements are probably some of the most important in your organization, yet they are often the...
How To Run Nonprofit Board Meetings That Actually Work
10 Ways To Make Your Next Board Meeting Better Nice work! You’ve done the analysis and identified and recruited onto your board the perfect slate of candidates to replace the retiring board members....
What Should Your Nonprofit Board Be Doing?
Learn how to create clear roles and responsibilities for your board of directors, to get the results you want for your nonprofit. From time to time executive directors express frustration about the...
How To Build a Nonprofit Board For Maximum Impact
Great organizations have great boards -- that fact is indisputable. The most important initiative of a nonprofit board is its responsibility to objectively and thoughtfully identify, recruit, and...
leadership
Do We Really Need a Board of Directors?
There is a pretty simple way to decide what is board business (governance) and what is staff business (operations).
Put Passion back into your Nonprofit Board Meetings
If you’ve struggled to increase board meeting attendance, raise the energy level in your meetings, develop a clearer focus on your mission, or instill a fiery passion back into your boardroom, I have an answer. It is quite simple, costs nothing, and you can do it at...
A Tool to Minimize Strife on Your Board-Your Values
Military experts say once a battle begins the battle plan goes out the window. I am seeing evidence this also happening on nonprofit boards. In a couple of cases I’ve seen terrible damage done to otherwise well-running nonprofits. Yet, due to strife, however caused,...
You Need a Prickly Pair on Your Board
I love the desert, not just because that is where spring training of my beloved losers-The Chicago Cubs- practice but because of its unique vegetation. Cacti come in many different styles. Some say there are over 2,000 species of these complex living creations. One...
Team or Family: Your Choice
Leading a nonprofit is not easy. There are many interests to balance, many balls to juggle, many personalities to assuage, many clients to serve. It's been likened to herding carts. So, in order to do the very best job you and your agency can do, you need reliable...
Are You a Leader Worth Reproducing?
One of a leader’s primary duties is to grow and develop others. Just recently I began wrestling with a related question posed by a long-time friend of mine-Dave-who is in ministry.…Am I a leader worth reproducing? How about you? Are you a (fill in the blank) board...
board development
Healthy Discomfort-a Good Thing
The margin of success is pretty thin these days, whether you are leading a for-profit company or a nonprofit organization. Makes no difference. So, anything you can do to improve your product, service, or effectiveness is critical. And, if your organization has...
Engaging Gen Y
One comment I hear executive directors make with some regularity is how they wish they could figure out how to expand their volunteer and donor base to include younger people. I notice, though, that in practice these same executive directors continue to do the...
The Toughest Kind of Change
Back in January I posed these questions and asked you to consider them…“If I were creating my organization TODAY, what is the best way to set it up? Are we organized that way? What is getting in the way of our ideal envisioned structure?” Today, I’d like to take this...
Best Practices
Smart leaders are always looking for ways to manage their expenses better, increase revenue, or work smarter, especially during these days of uncertainty. In this environment, looking for ways to do things better has to be job one! One overlooked tool that can...
Your Greatest Asset
When nonprofit agencies think about risk management and protecting themselves, they usually think in terms of someone slipping and falling, auto accidents, insurance, etc. But they fail to address what may be their most critical off-balance sheet asset-their...
Give ’em a Chance
Remember early in your career, just before it really took off, and before you had made a name for yourself? You probably were in some lower-level position just doing what you were told as best you could, and trying hard to be a good team player. Then, one day your...
strategic planning
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“Upping” Your Nonprofit Board’s Game
The respected ECFA, Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, recently released its Governance survey, taken by 1,600 CEO'S, Board Chairs and directors from its member agencies. One of the more interesting learnings coming out of the survey was an agreement...
When a Board Falls Short of Expectations
There must be something in the water around here. I've had coffee with four separate nonprofit executive directors over the last 45 days, each one with the same problem--actually two problems. Their first problem is each ED believes their board is not providing the...
Who’s Your Thomas?
Leader: Who's you Thomas? You know...the "Doubtful Thomas"...on your board? The one who is not afraid to question your nonprofit's plans, general assumptions, habits, and conventional wisdom. The one who isn't afraid to challenge the powers that be (you and the board...
Build that Authentic Team Now
How to develop the next generation of leaders, how to build leadership bench-strength, leadership development in complex organizations
Got Alignment?
If you stop to think about it, leaders can significantly increase the impact of their nonprofit agencies without spending an extra dime. Say what? Let's say your agency has: Experienced leadership-CHECK! A clear and compelling strategic plan-CHECK! The respect and...
Quick-Start Your Board in 2013: Here’s How!
Now that the holidays are behind us and baseball’s spring training has begun, it’s time to insure the board is fully engaged in its work. For some, that means reconvening the current board. For others, it means welcoming several new board members to their first...
Show Up–Step Up–Speak Up!
My golfing buddy Brian tells me professional golfers have just three rules for their caddies: show up, keep up, shut up. Golf pros usually aren't looking for advise unless they specifically ask for it. They only want their caddy to be there when required and do their...
It’s Still Not Too late
Leaders and Board Members: Starting to feel guilty you did not prepare or update a strategic plan for your orgnanization's next 24-36 months? Even thought it is mid-December you still have time to develop a strategy and a plan. Its not rocket science and when your...
Sometimes, Singin’ Ain’t Easy
When things are going well, people usually sing loudly and really belt it out. That’s when churches echo with perhaps off-pitch, shrill, and sometimes nasal but always high-spirited and heart-felt sounds of happy people singing their hearts out. All seems right with...