Picks of the Week: August 23 - 29, 2009

Website of the Week -- CompassPoint Nonprofit Services

CompassPoint Nonprofit Services is a consulting, research, and training organization providing nonprofits with management tools, strategies, and resources to lead change in their communities. With offices in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, CompassPoint works with community-based nonprofits in executive transition, planning, boards of directors, finance systems and business planning, fundraising, and technology. While CompassPoint’s focus is on nonprofits in the Bay area, there are many resources that will be of use to all nonprofits. Go to: http://www.compasspoint.org.


Publication of the Week -- Principles of Fundraising: Theory and Practice by Wesley E Lindahl

From the publisher: Principles of Fundraising: Theory and Practice provides readers with an overview of the theory and practice of fundraising for nonprofit organizations. It approaches fundraising from a marketing position, yet incorporates concepts from the law, economics, accounting, history, sociology, psychology, theology, and ethics. While many fundraising textbooks are heavily geared toward practice, this textbook balances the approach and provides a basis for further study in the field of fundraising. Some features include: Comprehensive overview of the theory and practice for fundraising; Extensive chapter on models of fundraising; Historical background on fundraising included to set the context for current practice; Highlights the religious motivations for giving that represent the largest category for giving in the USA; Entire chapter dealing with ethical issues in fundraising; Builds in recent and classic academic research on fundraising. Principles of Fundraising: Theory and Practice also features boxed articles, examples, summaries, and short case studies to enhance the reading.

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com.


Trend of the Week -- Nonprofit Job Cuts

Organizations across the nonprofit sector are using combinations of staff management strategies, including salary freezes and layoffs, to deal with the recession, according to a survey Campbell & Company conducted in July 2009. Nearly half of nonprofit organizations (47.5 percent) have laid off staff members to cut costs as donations dwindle. Fifty percent of groups in the survey have frozen salaries, 15.8 percent have put a freeze on hiring, and 10.5 percent have mandated unpaid time off or reduced salaries and other benefits. The survey found that fund raisers were slightly less likely than their peers to be affected by the cuts. Roughly 43.5 percent of charities had laid off fund raisers, and 13 percent had hired more fund raisers in recent months to help win more donations. In addition to salary freezes and layoffs, organizations noted that they are:

• Imposing furloughs or reducing salaries, hours, raises or benefits, such as decreasing employer contributions to deferred compensation plans (10.5 percent each).
• Decreasing or eliminating bonuses (7.9 percent)
• More than half of respondents (51.2 percent) reported that their operational budgets are lower this fiscal year.

For more information, go to: http://www.campbellcompany.com.


Resource of the Week -- GuideStar Webinar Archive

GuideStar maintains an online archive of on demand webinars for nonprofits on a variety of subjects. Recent titles include: How to Build an Organizational Dashboard: Track and Measure Organizational Performance Easily and Inexpensively, Creating Sustainable Funding in Economically Challenging Times, Frictionless Fundraising, Nonprofit Research and Analysis Tools to Get the Job Done, and more. Go to: http://www2.guidestar.org.


Tech Tip of the Week -- Creating Lines in Word 2007

One of our favorite shortcuts from previous versions of Word still works in Word 2007! To create lines across the page of a Word document:

• Type three consecutive hyphens ( --- ) and press Enter for a normal line
• Type three underscores ( ___ ) and press Enter for a bold line
• Type three equal signs ( === ) and press Enter for a double line
• Type three pound symbols ( ### ) and press Enter for a triple line
• Type three tildes ( ~~~ ) and press Enter for a wavy line
• Type three asterisks ( *** ) and press Enter for a dotted line

These lines extend from the left margin to the right margin and the width of these lines will change if you change the margins of your document or if you change the orientation from Portrait to Landscape.