Like so many of you, I’ve recently made the change from working in my somewhat cluttered but beloved office to working remotely all the time. I have been a regular remote worker for one day a week (or one day every other week) for a number of years. This once-a-week opportunity to slip into my home office so that I could savor the peace and quiet, getting important “thinking and writing projects”  checked off the ever-present “to do” list, feels a lot different from my current full-time work[…]

 Over the past few weeks, coverage of COVID-19 (coronavirus) has dominated the news cycle. While the world has responded with swift mobilization, it is difficult to plan for the effect an outbreak could have on your community. Thankfully, infectious disease experts in Maryland and around the globe have developed advice on how to prepare for an outbreak, both personally and in the workplace. World Health Organization Free Learning Resource: an interactive, web-based, knowledge-transfer platform[…]

This is part of a special series, brought to you by the Standards for Excellence Institute, to provide nonprofit leaders with a brief nonprofit governance and management tip weekly over the course of 2020. We hope these short tips will be helpful to you and the nonprofits you serve. If you have suggestions for future topics, please forward these to acmadsen@standardsforexcellence.org.While your website is certainly a good start for introducing yourself to the public, if you are seeking to engage[…]

This is part of a special series, brought to you by the Standards for Excellence Institute, to provide nonprofit leaders with a brief nonprofit governance and management tip weekly over the course of 2020. We hope these short tips will be helpful to you and the nonprofits you serve. If you have suggestions for future topics, please forward these to acmadsen@standardsforexcellence.org.I recently read an article “Nonprofits Decline Gifts With Too Many Strings or Misaligned Values, Survey Finds” […]

This is part of a special series, brought to you by the Standards for Excellence Institute, to provide nonprofit leaders with a brief nonprofit governance and management tip weekly over the course of 2020. We hope these short tips will be helpful to you and the nonprofits you serve. If you have suggestions for future topics, please forward these to acmadsen@standardsforexcellence.org.At the end of last year, due to term limits, I ended my service as the chair of the finance committee of a[…]

This is part of a special series, brought to you by the Standards for Excellence Institute, to provide nonprofit leaders with a brief nonprofit governance and management tip weekly over the course of 2020. We hope these short tips will be helpful to you and the nonprofits you serve. If you have suggestions for future topics, please forward these to acmadsen@standardsforexcellence.org.Not a week goes by when we don’t hear about some nonprofit that is tackling the impact of some type of disaster. […]

"On social media, images and hashtags can spread like wildfire. Posts that go viral are usually those that prompt a visceral reaction from users who feel moved to reshare and, in the best cases, take action based on a post. The scale, reach, and free nature of social media make it lucrative for nonprofits on tight budgets to leverage it as a platform for soliciting donations and raising awareness through storytelling." Anita Varma, the assistant director of Social Sector Ethics, as well as[…]

 "The vast majority of nonprofits use multiple forms of social media to raise money, find volunteers, or take some action on behalf of the organization, with the goal of advancing objectives. Is your social media program fulfilling your mission? You need to ask yourself three questions." Joan Harrington, the director of Social Sector Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, a Replication Partner of the Standards for Excellence Institute wrote a blog on the Ethics of Social Media and[…]

This is part of a special series, brought to you by the Standards for Excellence Institute, to provide nonprofit leaders with a brief nonprofit governance and management tip weekly over the course of 2020. We hope these short tips will be helpful to you and the nonprofits you serve. If you have suggestions for future topics, please forward these to acmadsen@standardsforexcellence.org.When I started with the Standards for Excellence in April 2019, one of my first tasks was to draft the 2018[…]

This is part of a special series, brought to you by the Standards for Excellence Institute, to provide nonprofit leaders with a brief nonprofit governance and management tip weekly over the course of 2020. We hope these short tips will be helpful to you and the nonprofits you serve. If you have suggestions for future topics, please forward these to acmadsen@standardsforexcellence.org.Earlier this week, I answered my home phone and a paid fundraiser working for a nonprofit that my family and I[…]