Picks of the Week: August 15 - 21, 2010

Website of the Week – Volunteer Canada

Volunteer Canada is the national voice for volunteerism in Canada. Since 1977, Volunteer Canada has been committed to supporting volunteerism and civic participation through ongoing programs and special projects. National in scope, Volunteer Canada's board members, partners and members represent hundreds of different communities across Canada., Volunteer Canada actively engages in research, training and promotional campaigns to increase community participation and provide leadership on issues and trends in the Canadian volunteer movement. Go to: http://volunteer.ca/home.


Publication of the Week -- Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur

From the publisher: Business Model Generation is a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers striving to defy outmoded business models and design tomorrow's enterprises. If your organization needs to adapt to harsh new realities, but you don't yet have a strategy that will get you out in front of your competitors, you need Business Model Generation. Co-created by 470 "Business Model Canvas" practitioners from 45 countries, the book features a beautiful, highly visual, 4-color design that takes powerful strategic ideas and tools, and makes them easy to implement in your organization. It explains the most common Business Model patterns, based on concepts from leading business thinkers, and helps you reinterpret them for your own context. You will learn how to systematically understand, design, and implement a game-changing business model--or analyze and renovate an old one. Along the way, you'll understand at a much deeper level your customers, distribution channels, partners, revenue streams, costs, and your core value proposition. Click to preview this book on Amazon.com.


Trend of the Week – Nonprofit salaries in 2010

Terrie Temkin, founding partner of CoreStrategies for Nonprofits Inc, has compiled an excellent summary of recent trend reports on nonprofit salaries. She states: " In April of 2009, the reported salary picture was bleak. According to a study by the Nonprofit Finance Fund released at that time, 41 percent of nonprofit organizations had reduced or were considering reducing staff or salaries and 22 percent had reduced or were considering reducing staff hours. As many as 43 percent of the nonprofits surveyed were dipping into their reserves to stay afloat. ... However, by April of 2010, things appear to have changed. The AFP study referenced above found that the average salaries of its U.S.-based survey participants increased by 7.4 percent." For more information, go to: http://philanthropyjournal.org.


Resource of the Week – HR CheckUp

The HR Council for the Nonprofit Sector takes action on nonprofit labor force issues for Canadian nonprofits. The Council has developed a 10 minute online HR CheckUp. This self-diagnostic allows you to rate your organization's current performance in a number of functional HR areas. Based on your results, a custom HR Prescription will recommend tools, tips and strategies to improve and maintain your organizational HR Health. To access the Checkup and a number of other HR tools and resources, go to: http://www.hrcouncil.ca/resource-centre/home.cfm.


Tech Tip of the Week -- Quickly Change Font Size in Word

To quickly increase or decrease the font size of selected text by 1 point, do this:

This trick works in Word 2007 as well as earlier versions.
• Select Text
• Ctrl + ] to increase by 1 point
• Ctrl + [ to decrease by 1 point