Resource Roundup

Here are a few resources I've been tapping into lately. (Unlike the photo, these -- mercifully -- are all available electronically!)

From the Nonprofits Assistance Fund: Recession Risk and Preparedness Assessment

This tool asks you to rank statements in four areas: financial health, financial information, organizational change, and leadership engagement. Here’s an example of a statement: Significant changes in program or strategic direction have been implemented in the past two years.

Each ranking option is weighted with points, which you total up for a quick diagnosis.

Transparency Fuels Competition Video

At academicearth.org you can view short videos on a variety of topics. This one on the lack of business rigor in the nonprofit world features Debra Dunn from Hewlett Packard making the argument that transparency fuels competition and the significant lack of it in the nonprofit sector is the underlying reason why nonprofits are not more sharply focused and successful. Nonprofits are typically not very transparent when identifying and using metrics for goal achievement. Dunn makes a brief, but compelling, case for developing what she calls a “full ecosystem of social entrepreneurship” that will lead to radical transformation of nonprofits.

TED.com

A host of short videos on a broad spectrum of topics -- all meant to get you thinking. Here's one I recommend: Katherine Fulton's You are the future of philanthropy. In it, she challenges the assumption that philanthropy is only for the wealthy, where the giver and the organization are at the center of beneficence rather than the problem. She explores the democratization of philanthropy -- crowd-driven, aggregated giving -- that is being fueled by online social networks. You'll like the ending.

Blogs

I've also added some blogs to my list. Check out Elaine Gurian's post titled Museum as Soup Kitchen at Museum 3.0.

Photo: Era Tower by simone-

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Three Most Important Nonprofit Executive Director Soft Skills

If you were asked to narrow down the list of executive director qualifications to the three most important, which ones would you identify? Would the list consist of soft skills, hard skills, or some combination? Would your list be based on the great ED you are or one you've worked for, or would it be your wish list for the ED you haven't been fortunate yet to work for? This was an assignment in my recent online class in leadership and administration for the American Association for State and Local History . I asked the class to review three-five advertisements for museum directors and analyze what these listings intimated about the organization’s past experience, current focus and goals, and future aspirations. Then, I asked the class to identify what they consider to be the three most important qualifications they would look for in a director. (Okay, so there's more than three if you dissect my three big groups.) Soft skills outnumbered hard skills, although

Back in the Saddle

MY LAST POST WAS NOVEMBER 2012, A LIGHT YEAR AWAY it seems, that marked the beginning of a long push toward completing a manuscript on history museum leadership with my co-author, Joan Baldwin. We finally submitted 350+ pages to our editor at Rowman & Littlefield this week. If all goes well, we expect the book to be available in early 2014. It's taken us two years to get to this point, so six more months or so of revision and production don't seem too long to wait until we can hold the final product in our hands (and you can, too!). The project put a lot of things on hold, including this blog. I'm glad to be back writing about intentional leadership -- leading by design -- for nonprofit boards and staffs. Certainly, my thoughts are now informed by the forthcoming book, in which Joan and I posit that nonprofits need to focus resources on leadership, not just management. Most cultural nonprofits are at a crossroad, as is the sector in general, where nothing is qu

What Would Make You Turn Down an Invitation to Join a Board?

THERE'S SO MUCH WRITTEN ABOUT RECRUITING BOARD TALENT, I thought I'd spend a little time thinking about it from the prospect's point of view. Clearly, there are boards where the line is long to get on them. But what would make you turn down an invitation? Here's a short list to get the conversation started: 1. You've had no prior exposure to the organization. Your immediate reaction is "did you pull my name out of a hat?" (Is that lady in the picture the head of the Nominating Committee?) Seems as though there must be a hidden agenda at work (like you're rich and once you become a board member you'll pour all your resources into the organization) or the organization is simply looking for any warm body to fill a seat. 2. The organization doesn't have a good reputation. There's something to be said for street cred. An organization that's floundering may be strengthened by your participation or you may find yourself sucked into

Leading by Design

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