UPDATE: From October 2018 to December 2019, I was the Healthy Food Access Project Collaboration Manager for Community Action. The final Healthy Food Access report/community assessment is now available.
Further details on the project are below.
How to successfully hire and transition a corporate candidate
We’ve all seen the applicants: yet another middle manager has “found their calling” and wants to transition from a corporate job to a nonprofit position. It’s easy to be skeptical that they just need a job and will leave as soon as they find a higher paying position. But some people really are ready to make the transition from the business world into a cause they care about. How do you find those people and how do you help them make the transition? [Read more…] about How to successfully hire and transition a corporate candidate
Guidelines and Principles for Nonprofit Excellence
It can be hard to assess how you compare to other nonprofits. As with any human endeavor, we want to compare ourselves to bigger and better nonprofits, without really knowing the story behind their success. Instead, you are better off steadily improving your organization to be stronger and more resilient based on best nonprofit standards.
The Nonprofit Association of the Midlands provides its Guidelines and Principles for Nonprofits free of charge to Nebraska and Iowa nonprofits. [Read more…] about Guidelines and Principles for Nonprofit Excellence
Engaging Employees
My best employee, the one who had been at the organization the longest, wasn’t performing up to his previous standards. This was the person who had been the person I’d relied on to get things done for the last few years. He had the enthusiasm and passion for the job. But it was getting more and more frustrating to work with him. [Read more…] about Engaging Employees
Why I Left My Executive Director Position
As an executive director, your departure brings about a huge change for an organization. It is challenging to know when it is time to leave, both for yourself and for the sake of the organization. How do you decide when it is time to go? [Read more…] about Why I Left My Executive Director Position
Why Develop a Contract for your ED?
As an executive director, I had a board that I enjoyed working with, but there were friction points. I now realize that the answer to these was simple, I needed a contract.
The truth is that boards aren’t great employers. The board-ED relationship is always a somewhat awkward one. An ED has 9 or 12 or 15 bosses, who are technically supposed to act together, but in reality they don’t always manage to do that. Plus the board composition changes regularly, so the ED’s relationship with them changes as well. [Read more…] about Why Develop a Contract for your ED?