Resources
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Client Spotlight: Scholarship America
This video features Scholarship America's CEO Lauren Segal discussing the organization's vision for the future. Creation In Common worked with this national organization to set its strategic agenda in 2011 and continues to help senior leadership evaluate its progress...
Your Promise Is Your Brand
This article originally appeared in the Nonprofit Quarterly in 2005. "We will put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.”This declaration by President Kennedy is considered one of the most effective national promises ever made. Not because we were fascinated by...
Is 5:30 pm the best time for a board meeting? Really?
I was sitting in a board meeting this evening asking myself this question and at the same time my brain went click. Off it went. I just nodded my head for the rest of the meeting wondering if I had drool coming out of the side of my mouth. I know there is no such...
Defining Your Mission Statement
Here are three key ingredients to create an effective mission statement.
Overcoming a Disconnect with the Mission
Several year’s ago I was facilitating a meeting when the president of the organization said… “We are not who we are.” That odd statement codified what everyone was feeling in the room—lost. Somewhere along the organization’s journey it got detoured and ended up in a...
Procrastination… my name is board member
Without telling anyone I decided to take the summer off from the blog. Unfortunately, I took the summer off from being a board member too. I didn't tell anyone about this either. It was not my intention to stop being a decent board member, it just happened. I got...
Has Social Media and Social Causes Together Achieved a “Citizen Kane” Moment?
This post is off-the-beaten path of what I usually write about, but I have been curious about this for sometime. Many consider Orson Welles' Citizen Kane to be the greatest American movie ever made. Premiering in 1941, it follows the first movie, The Horse in Motion,...
Flip Your Mission: Framing a Compelling Message
This installment of the Sixty-Second Strategy challenges board and staff to frame a compelling message by transforming how they talk about their organization.
Rewrite Your Next Board Meeting
At the first board meeting I ever attended, the only person who spoke was my boss, the executive director. Driving back to the office, she asked me what I thought of the meeting. I told her the board was not very engaged. She agreed and said, “I just don’t know how to...
Board Members Are Not Our Development Directors
In the May 1st online edition of the Chronicle of Philanthropy a headline stated: “Charities Give Boards Little Training in Fund Raising, Study Finds.” I would argue that most board members do not want training in fund raising. They didn’t join our organizations...
Has Your Nonprofit Board Been Neutered?
Here's a simple way to find out. In a middle of a board meeting, look at the people around the table and ask yourself: Does the quality of this discussion match the quality of people? Granted, "quality" is fairly subjective. Yet, it is pretty easy to tell if you have...
Defining Your Organization’s Value
This installment of the Sixty-Second Strategy covers a quick exercise to help organizations define the value they create and deliver to the communities they serve. For more information, go to the related post entitled Owning Your Place in the Community. Also,...