Feb 11
9
Do You Have Emerging Leaders?
In January, I wrote a post and told you what I was going to try to do more of this year. One of the more frequent activities of mine is going to be blogging. If you look, you will see that I only posted four times in January. Now, one could say that blogging four times does not appear to be frequent activity. While I do agree with that notion, I would like to point out that four times was definitely more frequent than the number of times I blogged in January of 2010 – in January, 2010 I did not have a blog. Hey, you have to look for the positive. Beating myself up doesn’t help anyone.
Today’s blog post is to inform you about an opportunity for a select group of emerging nonprofit leaders. Do you have one in your organization? The Independent Sector announced they are accepting applications for the next cohort of the American Express NGEN (Next Generation) Fellows Program. This is a great opportunity for young (their definition is under 40) emerging leaders to strengthen their skills and develop their networks. If you are not familiar with the Independent Sector’s work, you should check it out. They are an impressive membership organization.
Posted in Nonprofit Professional Development by .
Jan 11
21
Free Webinars
Following up on the learning theme from my last blog post, the Wild Apricot blog has listed 31 free webinars for the month of February. WOW! I am definitely going to take advantage of some of these. There are free seminars about social media, marketing, grant writing, nonprofit leadership and more. Click on the link for Wild Apricot above to see all of the details.
Posted in Something Different by .
Jan 11
18
Never Stop Learning
This morning I had the pleasure of co-facilitating a seminar about evaluation, compensation and leadership development for nonprofit executives. The audience was composed of board members of various nonprofits. You can take a look at the presentation slide deck on the Transition Management Solutions website. I thought the most interesting part of the discussion centered on the assessment of the nonprofit executive.
The strongest leaders I know are those who want to continue to learn, advance and grow professionally. These folks would feel stagnated if they were not progressing in their leadership. How do they know they are advancing if they are not being properly assessed? Analysis of leadership should not be limited to an annual performance review. There are several good assessment tools available. I encourage you to get input on the assessment from more than just one type of group your leader directs. Consider gathering input from many different stakeholders, including employees, funders, community partners and board members. I think it is important to challenge board members and executives to not think of it as a criticism or analysis of weakness, but rather highlighting opportunities for growth. If you start from a place of sincere desire for advancement, then the outcomes will be tremendous.
Jan 11
14
Crowdrise – The Next Big Thing?
By Lou Rouse
Is Crowdrise the next big thing in Philanthropy? Ed Norton thinks so. I am a big fan of Ed’s. I not only love his movies, but I also love that he “gets it” when it comes to activism and philanthropy. It officially launched in May of 2010. I know what you are thinking – “Beth is just now telling me about this?” I admit, perhaps I am a little behind, but, tell the truth, you did not know about it before now either, did you?
This USA Today article from June gives a good explanation of what Crowdrise is all about.
Created by actor and activist Edward Norton, producer Shauna Robertson (Superbad, Knocked Up) and Robert and Jeffrey Wolfe (founders of the quirky online retailer Moosejaw), Crowdrise is harnessing the appeal of social networking to make giving go viral.
It’s “about getting people who are not sure their little bit makes a difference to feel persuaded that they can make a difference,” Norton says, and this “micro-giving” is the backbone of Crowdrise. The charity, which has been operating unpublicized since February, officially launched in May.
Users build a profile (called a “Charitable Life”), create project pages linked to their favorite registered non-profit organizations, encourage their social networks to donate and get other users to join them and raise money of their own, amplifying small amounts into bigger checks that Crowdrise cuts to the charities each month.
This is what Ed Norton’s profile looks like on Crowdrise:
I already like this better than Jumo. I have signed up for Crowdrise and will soon be starting a page.
You tell me what should be my first fundraiser?
Posted in News You Need to Know online fundraising Uncategorized by .
Jan 11
6
New Year, Now What?
Image: Sujin Jetkasettakorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Happy New Year! I am the kind of person who likes to take time in January to reflect on the past year and contemplate opportunities for the new year. 2010 was the year I more fully embraced social media. I decided I would blog. First, I learned how to purchase a domain with a vague understanding of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.) I expanded my vocabulary with a lot of web jargon like Web2.0, FTP (file transfer protocol), SQL ( Structured Query Language ), SEO (search engine optimization) themes, widgets, plugins, rss and many more. I poured hours into learning this stuff. I would read words I did not understand and then have to look them up and read several more things. I will give you an example; I read this from the Yoast website:
Post titles and meta descriptions
WordPress SEO let’s you set templates for titles and meta descriptions for all types of pages, so you could come up with a template and not have to think about it, or you could use the WordPress SEO meta box to completely optimize your post title and meta description, using the snippet preview functionality to see what it would look like in Google.
Say what? I swear it was like trying to learn another language without Rosetta Stone and only a textbook instead. So I am much more knowledgeable about this now, but there is still so much to learn, like Twitter. I know this much – follow me @sector3report. I also know that I love WordPress.
In 2011, I plan to be more consistent meditating, working out and blogging. I also plan to work diligently to expand my social media network and increase the number of visits to my blog. You can help me with the visits. If you like what you have been reading please tell others about sector3report.
What are you going to focus on in 2011? They say (you know, those experts who are never named) that if you write it down and put it out there, you are more likely to get it done.
Posted in My Experience by .
