One of the guest speakers we had in for the Nonprofit Strategy graduate course I taught this past fall at the University of Maryland shared this quote with the class, and it was one of the students’ favorites of the term. I’m not sure who originated the quote, but there are lots of articles with this title and even a new book about to come out by that name. (I have not … [Read more...] about “Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch”
Strategy
Great Tools for Setting Outcomes
I have been giving the same speech for about fifteen years on the importance of nonprofits setting outcome measures – both for programs and at the organizational level. When a Board asks itself “How do we know we are making a difference?” there needs to be some kind of reliable measure that provides the answer. Inevitably, though, when I give this “speech” someone says “But … [Read more...] about Great Tools for Setting Outcomes
Give Your Strategy a Tune-up
How are you going to pursue your vision and work toward accomplishing your mission? What is your strategy? Your strategy is a collection of your answers to these three questions: *What programs/services do we want to provide to make a Mission Impact? *How will we staff our organization? *How will we fund our organization? The collective answers to these questions describe … [Read more...] about Give Your Strategy a Tune-up
Drucker’s Five Important Questions
The Nonprofit Strategy class I am teaching at Maryland was due to discuss SWOT analysis last night, so it has had me thinking about various assessment tools available for nonprofits. Peter Drucker spent a great deal of time in his later years working on applications of his management ideas for nonprofits – or, as he called them – social sector organizations. One of the … [Read more...] about Drucker’s Five Important Questions
A Cool Tool
It’s free, it’s been out for about ten years, and yet I think it is still a tremendously underutilized resource. It is the McKinsey/VPP Organization Capacity Assessment Tool. To download your free copy, go to: http://www.vppartners.org/learning/mckinsey-vpp-ocat The OCAT was developed by consulting experts McKinsey & Company for Venture Philanthropy Partners as a … [Read more...] about A Cool Tool