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Managance Consulting is now on Facebook!
Please join our group to have discussions and to share information, ideas and resources.
We are currently exploring Peter Block's new book: Community: The Structure of Belonging. BK Publishers, Inc, 2008.
Click here to join today!
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Featured Nonprofit
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Makes Credit Scores A Measuring Tool for Nonprofits
CBA is
revolutionizing how credit scores are being used by nonprofits with missions of
helping low income families build their financial security. Credit is an
important part of every financial portfolio but among individuals with low
incomes credit is traditionally viewed as a liability instead of an
asset. CBA is changing this mindset by teaching nonprofit lenders and
financial literacy programs how to use credit scores as an indicator of
financial health overtime and a measure to motivate and sustain good financial
behavior. Through CBA Credit Reporter member nonprofits can for the first
time report data to two credit bureaus. Through the Credit Builders Tool
Kit nonprofits can teach their clients how to change their financial behavior
and build a strong credit score.
- How could
you use credit scores as an outcome measure for your programs?
- How could your staff benefit from learning about their own credit scores?
For more information visit creditbuildersalliance.org
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Managance -
Pronounced: ma-nij- ən(t)s\ -noun
Managance is about organizing, administering and supervising with vision and intention to produce great results. Managance Above is about going over the top and exceeding expectations in achieving your mission.
In this edition read about tools, resources and organizations working to help nonprofits navigate rough economic waters and strengthen their financial outlook.
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"Planned Abandonment" - When Stopping Something Is A Good Thing
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It's a curious thing. When Managance Consulting gathers "customer
input" for strategic planning we ask the question, What should (insert
organization name) stop doing. Almost
without fail the answer is "I don't think they should stop doing anything"...but
often there are suggestions about what to improve. So improve is comfortable but "stop" is
not. Yet "stop" may be the very thing that is
needed to create space for new success. In our strategic thinking and planning we support clients in answering this hard
question to get real results.
In the Drucker Foundation Self-Assessment Tool (1999) Peter Drucker wrote, "One of
the most important questions for nonprofit leadership is, Do we produce results
that are sufficiently outstanding for us to justify putting our resources in
this area? Need alone does not justify
continuing. Nor does tradition. You must match your mission, your
concentration, and your results. Like
the New Testament parable of the talents, your job is to invest your resources
where the returns are manifold, where you can have success."
"To abandon anything is
always bitterly resisted. People in any
organization are always attached to the obsolete-the things that should have
worked but did not, the things that once were productive and no longer
are. They are most attached to what in
an earlier book (Managing for Results, 1964) I called investments in managerial
ego." Yet abandonment comes first. Until that has been accomplished, little else
gets done. The acrimonious and emotional
debate over what to abandon holds everybody in its grip. Abandoning anything is thus difficult, but
only for a fairly short spell. Rebirth
can begin once the dead are buried; six months later, everybody wonders, "Why
did it take us so long?"
- What is your organization tolerating? How could you stop this and create some
fresh air?
- What are a few things you could imagine your
organization stopping? What would
it look and feel like to stop doing it?
For more information:
Leader to Leader Institute
(formerly the Drucker Foundation) http://www.pfdf.org/
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Powerful Writing An Essential Skill Anytime
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Writing is
a fundamental and invaluable tool for nonprofit organization executive
directors. You more than anyone know how
important it is to tell the compelling stories of your organization and what it
means to your community. You know that great writing builds credibility
and poor writing will diminish the reputation of your organization. For
some, powerful writing is easy. For others it is a painful chore.
- Are you motivated to enhance
your writing this summer?
- Do you enjoy being a student
and a teacher?
- Do you find small groups
inspiring?
- Do you have access to a
telephone and Internet connection?
Then the
Executive Directors' Writing
Circle is just right for you. In a
comfortable setting with just 6 executive directors of community-based nonprofit
organizations and two seasoned coaches you will have the benefit of group and
1-on-1 attention to your own writing projects and we will explore a wide
variety of writing topics to strengthen your skills and
build your confidence as a writer. Denice Hinden of Managance Consulting &
Coaching and Dalya Massachi of Writing for Community Success have joined forces
to create this affordable and divine coaching group. Together we have
more than 40 years of experience working
in the nonprofit sector and we are passionate about writing well.
Interested
in learning more about this unique new group coaching series being offered June
10-September 2 (with a free intro call on May 19)? Click HERE.
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Recession 911 - Thinking Strategically about the Future
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Frugality is "in"-individuals are cutting costs, searching
for bargains and making difficult decisions about what qualifies as "essential
items" in budgets. Difficult economic
times have transformed the way people think about spending, shifting our
culture from one of materialism and excess to one of sensibility and necessity.
Just like individuals and families, nonprofit organizations
are feeling the economic pinch and have been forced to scale back expenditures
and operating costs. For most, this has meant reducing or eliminating all line
items and business practices that are not essential for providing services.
For both individuals and nonprofits, the tendency in
challenging times is to focus inward on the day-to-day and the action steps
that are needed to survive. While concentrating on staying afloat is essential,
so is thinking strategically about next steps
and positioning for the future, even in difficult times. Non-profits need to carve out time and
resources for defining a flexible strategy that will carry you through the hard
time and position you to move forward when the "cold economic
winter snow" melts away.
The Recession Tool Kit created by consultants Julia Pierson and Kathy
Shulman is a valuable new tool we found for short-term strategic thinking. The tool-kit offers a 6-10 week
assessment and planning process designed to help individual and groups of nonprofit
organizations collect data and make decisions for their futures in 5
concise steps:
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Get grounded in your mission and vision
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Collect internal and external data for decision making
- Analyze data and trends to identify critical issues
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Shape up the organization and exploring alternative
ways of using resources, and
- Adopt an action plan for moving forward
Pierson and Shulman offer a Peer Training series for 6-8
nonprofit organizations at a time to use the Recession Tool Kit. Participating organizations receive
tools for planning their finances, programs and contingencies, methods for
making strategic decisions and some individualized coaching for executive
directors' to support their own leadership goals. In the Peer Training Series nonprofit
executives have
the opportunity to share ideas and continue as a network of support long after
the process is completed.
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What
strategic thinking are you doing to position your organization for future success?
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What
short-term actions can you take to be prepared to move forward when "economic
spring" returns?
For more
information contact: Julia Pierson |
410-258-8878 or Kathy Shulman |
410-435-0201
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Magnify Your Impact - Share. Learn. Earn.
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IdeaEncore Network (www.ideaencore.com) is a peer-to-peer, on-line learning
marketplace - exclusively for nonprofits and those who support them - to share, sell, and buy all types and forms
of practical knowledge and information assets - - including ready-to-use tools,
templates, grant proposals, grant tracking tools, training content, policies,
procedures and plans (almost anything you might need to strengthen your
management and performance).
Surely
someone has "Been there. Done that?" If you think "someone has probably done this before", you can
quickly find what colleagues have already shared. By reusing and remixing
quality materials, you can save significant time and money, learn from a broad
range of ideas proven through practice, and reduce your execution risk.
Information is available both free and for a modest price.
The value of IdeaEncore network grows everyday as nonprofits and those
who support them share new resources.
Based on our experience, the process of establishing an account and
uploading materials is friendly and quick and the organization or individual offering the resources sets the price.
Consider these questions to help you begin sharing resources and earning
extra income for your organization.
- What
tools and templates have you created that are ready to use and could be of
value to other organizations if they could be easily accessed? Think
checklists, assessments, polices, procedures, case studies, evaluations,
and more.
- What
fee would make it worthwhile for you to share these tools and help recoup
some of the cost in creating each one?
Check out
these helpful resources:
Strategic Action Plan Tracking Database
Easy to use
Access database that monitors progress on strategic plan implementation by
tracking measurable outcomes for goals, objectives and action steps. Managance Consulting (Silver Spring, MD)
$1,499 (Free to Managance Consulting Strategic Planning Clients)
We are happy to
arrange a free preview of the database tool.
Send an request in an email to drhinden@managance.com.
Start Preparing Yesterday for the Redesigned Form 990
The new Form
990 "requires" substantially all exempt organizations to implement a
whole bevy of policies and procedures. Windes & McClaughry (Long Beach, CA)
12 pages - Free.
No Surprises: Harmonizing Risk and Reward in Volunteer Management - 4th Edition
Safeguarding volunteers, service recipients
and the organization requires a sophisticated blend of risk taking and risk
protection. Nonprofit Risk Management
Center (Leesburg,
Virginia). 144 pages - $10
Capacity Assessment Survey
Two page,
53 point self-administered assessment of an organization's capacity.
Nonprofit Resources Center (Sacramento,
CA) 3 pages - Free.
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