Leading by Design

MY MENTAL LIST OF CULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS ABOUT TO GO UNDER was significantly lengthened this week.  Just yesterday a neighbor told me that a small environmental/ natural history research organization she works with was about to fold.  She was told that the board was casting around for a place to transfer the organization's collections of books, maps, photos and videos (although no one knows exactly where that will be despite the fact that they may have to shut their doors in a couple of weeks).   The day before that, a colleague called to say she was retiring from her organization and that there's a movement afoot to dissolve it (not her doing).  A third organization has burned through its endowment fund to the point where some board members think it's time to close the whole place down.   That's all in just the last week. I've been hearing for a long time that the pace of consolidations and dissolutions in the nonprofit sector would speed up as the ...

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 succ...