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Data Visualization: User-Centered Design
Our partner organization, Your Part-Time Controller, offers helpful advice on how U/X and user-centered design methods can better communicate visual stories in a way that advances the mission of your organization. How to use data visualizations …
I Followed A Founder: a First Person Nonprofit Tale
Too often the focus on nonprofit executive transitions is about the departing executive. We’re in the middle of interviewing 58 executives who followed founders or long-time leaders. Here’s just one of their stories; we’ll call her “Amanda”: The …
Firing My Friend, the Founder
Blue Avocado's recent article, "The Board Just Fired Me, and I'm the Founder!" generated a huge reader response. For this issue we interviewed a board member from a different organization:My wife became friendly with someone she knew …
The Board Just Fired Me . . . and I’m the Founder!
We usually don't publish First Person Nonprofit articles anonymously. But in this case we know the individual and corroborated the key points of her story, and we understand why she has asked that her name not be published.Four weeks and five days …
The Secret to a High Impact Annual Report
We nonprofits often put a great deal of time and effort into our annual reports, especially compared with how briefly most recipients will look at them. “The annual report is a comic book,” a nonprofit executive once told me. “Th …
Board Meetings by Phone: Legal? A Good Idea?
With gas prices rising and everyone getting busier, more and more board members want to participate in board meetings by telephone. The advantage: more people participate. The disadvantage: there's a lot lost in human interaction for both the board …
What Should Boards Know About Insurance Brokers?
Considering how insurance costs typically constitute a sizable chunk of a nonprofit budget, this significant cost is remarkably un-examined. A key part to getting the lowest costs, the best coverage, and the best service is getting the right insurance …
In Search of Unicorns: Finding and Hiring Outside Grantwriters Part 2
In Part 1 of this article, Wes Mukoyama of Yu-Ai Kai asked the question: “As a small agency . . . how do I look for a grantwriter? I have talked to a few who either want to be paid by the hour or receive a percentage of the grant. Any suggestions …
Unicorns Found: Meet Two Grantwriters
In Part 1 of Blue Avocado's series on hiring grantwriters, we compared grantwriters to unicorns: elusive, seldom-seen miraculous creatures, possibly mythical. In researching this article we reached out to dozens of grantwriters. Here you have a cha …
Board Cafe: Meaningful Acts of Appreciation for Boards and Staff – 7 Do’s and 2 Don’t’s
"We [board members] do this huge amount of work, and we're volunteers, but the staff never seems to have any response but criticism for us not doing more!""I'm the executive director, and the board just seems to focus on what we …
