What Works
Each edition of this newsletter contains a section I call "What Works."
Most editions include sections from one of two longer articles I'm writing. Why Organizations Thrive and Why Organizations Go Off Course detail lessons I learned while growing the Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV), buttressed by my observations of dozens of other groups both in Oregon and across the country. Collectively, I believe these lessons are a very useful set of principles that any Executive Director can use to improve their organization's capacity to fulfill its mission. This edition includes Why Organizations Thrive Lesson 14: Embrace Your Role in the Network. I previously devoted a separate lesson (Lesson 2) to the importance of relationships as a major factor in determining the health of a nonprofit. Nonprofits that relentlessly focus on building personal relationships tend to be more successful. Just as individuals form personal relationships, organizations have connections to other organizations. If you were to somehow "map" out all these connections into a network, you would get a glimpse at how an individual organization interacts with its connections. Organizations that understand and embrace their role in the network are more likely to thrive than those who view themselves as stand-alone agents of change. Why should you embrace your role in the network? And how do you embrace it? Read the full article. Download the PDF from my website | 
