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How We Built a Nonprofit from Our College Bedroom and What We Wish We Knew
A couple years ago during our sophomore year of college, we were sitting in our tiny bunk beds discussing the profound lack of access to educational tools for young, sick children after witnessing it all summer long in a pediatric clinic. We decided to …
The Best Way To Put Clients First Is To Let Them Lead!
Those of us who work at nonprofits are drawn to a particular mission and a desire to do good and give back. Most of us have navigated our careers thoughtfully and intentionally and have worked hard (perhaps even tirelessly). Yet often, despite our good …
Ego Checks, Spaghetti Sauce, and Other Suggestions for Nonprofit Collaboration
My dad is a fan of saying, “Many hands make light work,” as I’m being voluntold to help clean up after dinner. Now how does being elbow deep in burnt on spaghetti sauce relate to nonprofits? It’s hard work but collaboration makes it easier. One …
Whose nonprofit is it anyway?
Call it founder’s syndrome, the succession slump, or something not suitable for work, when a nonprofit leader moves on, the process isn’t always easy. But when control of a signature program or the organization itself is on the line, questions about wh …
In the Board Room: Staying In the Loop And Out Of the Weeds
Recently, a nonprofit CEO requested that I help him keep his incoming board chair “in the loop but out of the weeds.” A catchy slogan, but what does that really mean? Those who have been through board leadership changes know the de …
First-Person Nonprofit: Making the Case (Statement!)
Alice Rossignol is a development writer and editor for The Nature Conservancy. Here she puts her pen to paper about a big professional first. She decided to leap or maybe she got pushed. Either way, a story we need to hear again and again! …
First Person: I Am A Young Social Entrepreneur
Editor’s Note: What does it take to be entrepreneurial? We invited Anika Stephens to share her recent experience in an incubator for young leaders who have already made a positive social or economic impact in their communities and her advice for …
Divorce and the Nonprofit Board Member
Over the course of seven years, I have served on the boards of two nonprofit agencies and on the education committee of a third. I’m a professional academic, with the organizational skills and the flexible schedule that make me valuable as a vol …
Robert Egger: “Our Sector Is About To Be Hit, And Hit Hard” A Blue Avocado Interview
For 24 years, Robert Egger served as president of the DC Central Kitchen, which has created more than 30 million meals and helped 1,500 men and women gain full-time employment. Today he runs the astoundingly successful L.A. Kitchen on the same m …
A Fork in the Yellow Brick Road to Oz
Erik Talkin is the CEO of the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County. He has fun describing an approach to strategic choices that has us singing, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” . . . So you and your nonprofit stepped out onto the yellow brick road, hear …
