Picks of the Week: April 4 - 10, 2010

Website of the Week – Cause Marketing Forum

Cause Marketing Forum (CMF) was founded in 2002 to advance and expand cause marketing in America. Activities of the Forum include:
• The Cause Marketing Forum Conference – an annual summit that attracts business and nonprofit executives to learn, connect and celebrate cause marketing’s best campaigns and outstanding practitioners.
• The Cause Marketing Halo Awards – Judged by an interdisciplinary panel of cause marketing experts, the Halo Awards recognize outstanding cause marketing programs.
• The Cause Marketing Resource Center – case studies, best practices, “Cause Marketing 101” and more to support creation of effective cause marketing programs.
• Cause Marketing Forum Membership - Individuals who join the CMF receive free admission to monthly Cause Marketing Masters teleclasses, 10% off other CMF teleclasses and advance notice of CMF events and more.
• Cause Marketing Forum Workshops and Teleclasses
• Cause Alliance Research Service - Offers specialized background profiles on nonprofit organizations for corporations researching potential partners.

For more information, go to: http://www.causemarketingforum.com/default.asp.


Publication of the Week -- The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention: Essential Survival Skills for Any Economy by Pamela Mitchell

From the publisher: In The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention, America's Reinvention Coach(r) Pamela Mitchell offers every tool readers need to navigate the full arc of career change. Part I introduces the Reinvention Mindset, with what you need to know to be prepared mentally to get started. In Part II, you read the real-life stories of ten individuals who successfully made the leap to new and unexpected careers, using the 10 laws. Each story is followed by an in-depth lesson that explains how to adapt these laws to your own career goals, and what actions and precautions to take. The lessons answer all your tactical concerns about navigating the roadblocks, getting traction and managing your fears. The final section provides workbook exercises for fine-tuning your reinvention strategies for maximum results. Clear-headed, calming, practical, and thorough, this is the ideal action plan for getting through any career crisis and ending up securely in the lifestyle you've always dreamed of having. Click to preview this book on Amazon.com.


Trend of the Week – Nonprofit Job Growth during the Recession

According to a new report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies and the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations entitled “Nonprofits and Recessions:New Data from Maryland”, nonprofit organizations are a counter-cyclical force in the economy, actually adding workers in times of economic downturn. Key findings include:

• Despite the recession underway at the time, nonprofit employment in Maryland continued its growth in 2008, increasing by 2.7 percent between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2008.
• By contrast, for-profit employment in Maryland decreased by 3.3 percent during this same period, eliminating over 61,000 jobs. Demonstrating the nonprofit sector’s role as a critical counter-cyclical force, nonprofits thus accounted for all of the state’s private employment growth between 2007 and 2008
• Despite the continued growth of nonprofit employment in Maryland, nonprofits have actually lost market share in some fields due to the more rapid expansion of for-profits in these fields. Between 1999 and 2008, the nonprofit share of private employment declined by 13 percentage points in educational services; 7 percentage points in nursing and residential care; and 1 percentage point in social assistance organizations.

To download a copy of the report, go to: http://www.ccss.jhu.edu.


Resource of the Week – Free Webinars on Foundation Fundraising

To help you master the world of foundation fundraising, proposal writing, and all that goes into getting the grants you need, the Foundation Center offers a number of short web-based training courses that are free of charge. Go to: http://foundationcenter.org.


Tech Tip of the Week -- Display Tabbed Documents in Access 2007

A new feature in Access 2007 is the option to use a tabbed interface. This allows you to open multiple objects (tables, forms, reports, or queries) at once. Each object is a separate tab so you can easily see the available objects and click on the one you want. To use this feature:

• Click the Office button in the left corner of the screen
• Click the Access Options button at the bottom of the window
• Select the Current Database in the left pane
• Under Document Window Options, select Tabbed Documents