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Matrix Map Part II: The Strategic Imperatives
In this article, Steve Zimmerman continues presentation of the Matrix Map model from the book Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability: In our last Blue Avocado column, we introduced the Matrix Map, which you …
The Matrix Map Approach Part One: How to Create the Matrix Map
You may have heard of the Dual Bottom Line: the idea that strategic choices must serve both mission impact and financial viability. But how do you turn this idea into a quantitative decision-making tool? Blue Avocado columnist Steve Zimmerman sum …
Ditch Your Board Composition Matrix
You know the board matrix: it has a list of skills and competencies that are “supposed” to be on the board, such as legal, marketing, HR, fundraising, finance. And typically there are also demographic qualities, such as gender, race, age. The boa …
High Pay for Nonprofit Execs? Analysis of 100,000 Salaries
Everybody has an opinion about whether nonprofit executives are paid too little or too much, but almost nobody has any real data outside their own experiences. At last! Economist Linda Lampkin (left) analyzed 100,000 nonprofit CEO salaries and ha …
And Now for a Different Type of Board Agenda
Board meeting time is deeply precious time, and the fulcrum of board-staff opportunity or disappointment. Let's be smarter about how we use it. Bonus: board meeting cartoon at end of article.Every third Tuesday, or maybe four Wednesdays a year, a n …
Stance: The ED’s Role and Attitude in Strategic Planning
An overlooked — but crucial — element in strategic planning is the attitude or stance that the executive director takes to the process. Jeanne Bell of CompassPoint suggests a variety of roles and stances that will be appropriate: As we exp …
Getting Real About Real-Time Evaluation
Every once in a while a field creeps closer to actually being helpful to nonprofits. Thanks to evaluators Clare Nolan and Fontane Lo for explaining a type of program evaluation — and how to make it work for you. Have you ever had an eval …
Questions to Ask Prospective Board Members
A coffee date isn’t a good idea only for beginning, tentative romances. A coffee or lunch date is an easy way to meet with individuals who may be good candidates for your nonprofit board. If you spend a few minutes ahead of time thinking about wh …
I Survived an IRS Audit
Uh oh. We are all afraid of getting audited by the IRS, but we don’t really know what would happen in one. Here is the True Life story of an environmental organization’s audit, how they survived, and their tips for the rest of us. It’s th …
The Automatic Nonprofit Salary Calculator
Jon Pratt of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits uses a tongue-in-cheek version of the familiar Salary Calculator model to comment trenchantly on the indiscriminate — and not so indiscriminate –differences in how nonprofit staff get paid:How muc …
